M

(M) Phase

2011-12-06T23:38:00.000-08:00

As if in a world this ugly, falling in love could ever be a bad thing. Sometimes even deciding on a preposition takes too long. Or a semi-colon. A dash. God forbid...«Guillemets». I have punctuation feelings. I'm still looking for a genre. A Forgetting Device. Sending starships.

"Pieces of us get divided," I tell you, "Over time, with experience, division. Some of us haven't been as divided as others. Some of us are slightly more whole than the rest. We learn to live with how much we have left."

Couverture Chocolate

2011-12-06T23:27:00.000-08:00

In the picture, they are in two rows. Everyone is the same height, so the front row is bent forward, hands on their knees, their rear ends out slightly behind them. They all smile, their white t-shirts tight and crisp prior to the actual day's work, their hair held back, their eyes wide, gaping even, as if the idea of the cupcakes they would soon be making filled them with a joy that spilled between the rows, cementing friendships in purple fondant and pink ganache.

Failures

2011-11-04T22:35:00.001-07:00

There will be things I forget.
I have already forgotten a lot.
Intentionally and otherwise.
Do you believe in preemptive strikes?
Forgetting is like that.
I ran out of my regular makeup color.
I've become a shade darker in under a week.
Radical transformation.

"To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
And read their hist'ry in a nation's eyes"
Don't scare the children, Mr. Gray.

You know...

2011-08-03T02:58:00.000-07:00

I had a dream the other night which was, I think, one of the happiest dreams I've ever had, though I imagine most other people would not think so were they to be in such a dream. I had a purpose though.

My thesis is out to committee. I'm worried, of course.
Sometimes there's nothing to do but drink a lot of white wine, listen to Tom Waits, and consider the lilies of the field.

"It's 2:45 in the morning, and I'm putting myself on warning."

You wander about.
You meet incredible people.

Holy Jesus Fuck Truck, my friends, Holy Jesus Fuck Truck. Jesus God.

In great haste, truly yours,

M

I got stuck on a side you know I never chose

2011-06-21T00:39:00.000-07:00

It's all about taking the easy way out for you, I suppose.

10

2011-06-18T01:43:00.001-07:00

Happy Birthday.

Locust and Bears

2011-06-07T23:52:00.000-07:00

I live in your pauses. I've built a house here made of fog, juniper twigs, and NYT book reviews. I wear mittens at all times At. All. Times. I breathe into them when my nose gets cold. I keep my adverbs close to my verbs.

Birds and Stars

2011-03-26T02:39:00.000-07:00

The Hawaiian chicken sauce had 1tbsp of crushed red pepper in it.
Juxtaposition is dangerous. It implies connections where there may be none.
The worst kinds of people are those who try to use the things you love against you.
Each angel its own species.
My patron saint sent me the A&E Romance Collection. Milagro!

Spring Break. I've written 40 pages. Read 4 books. Tried to make a little more sense of the world. It's a somewhat useless practice. Sense-making. Meaning-making. Hyphenated-making. The table is covered in folded paper. UFO. Cat. Birds. Stars.

The commercials say: If you don't have a child, you will go on a trip to France. Your current denture cleanser may be missing something. The best bed doesn't just lie there; it is adjustable; it moves. The mattress owners wiggle their argyled feet and revel in their good night's sleep. Anyone will eat pancakes at any time of day. Naked men are going to school online.

Oatmeal doesn't make itself.

Lennie Briscoe put Baby in the corner

2011-03-12T23:51:00.000-08:00

Coughing is no fun. My thesis is not done. Run, Lola, Run.
I like collages; Joseph Calbreath; short, painted nails; and the proper use of semi-colons.
I believe in unnerving stares. And the power of Altoids. Strike that. The abiding power of Altoids.
Some people have real problems. I don't. Mine are all imaginary. Like i²= -1. Or ghosts. Fuckin' ghosts.

Turning terns

2011-03-04T23:07:00.000-08:00

One battle. Two battle. Red battle. Blue battle. Fried ice cream snowpocalypse. A crayon the color of Ahab's anger. An ivory leg, bound up in red velvet. Catalog the universe. Supernatural included. What can we do? Force a hand. Face a music. Adagio for Strings. We made that silent planet speak. Oatmeal on ice. Smoke rising against the ocean. My writing is a series of missed opportunities. Unrecognized opportunities. Quick bread. Nomads. Concentric circles. Meeting for coffee. Starting fires, metaphorically. The fantastic few. Seeing beyond the end of a desk. Seeing around corners without mirrors. Maze. Maize. Mays. One day only. Call now. Aging octopus has a message for you. It's written in ink. Quite permanent. Bundles of letters. Piles of Q's and U's and sequences of events. For now, pace yourself. Drink slow. Carry the world. Drop it in the compost pile. Wait for a new one to emerge. You're beautiful walking away. And we were waiting for something beautiful.

Secret ingredients

2010-09-06T19:18:00.000-07:00

Waffles at the bottom of the mountain. Virgie's struggle with hard plaid. Peter Lorre's phonetic English. Fish and loaves. The best comment I ever received on an academic assignment was "Delicious. Macabre. Funny." It felt like home. I wanted to build a maze. Kick a rock down the street. All the way to Foster's Corner. Ridges in the road. Patterns in the fabric. Rending. Bits. I'm made of forgiveness. And marble. Long division seems a long time ago. Division now is quite common. This book says some people bribe themselves when they cannot have their first choice of topics for a thesis. So while I might like to write upon the Zombie Jesus/Cthulhu discourse community (we are few in numbers, I fear), this may not actually work in a Rhet/Comp thesis. So you bribe yourself: When I finish my thesis, I will X, Y, and Z. Bribe #1: When I finish my thesis, I will catapult to riches and fame, only to become a recluse who has internet access and a fondness for rice cookers, sentences fragments, and writing dirty messages in magnet letters on refrigerators. Aim high. Fight the good fight. Light all the matches. Bribe #2: When I finish my thesis, I will get pizza flavored Soup at Hand back on the shelves and flatten change with trains. I should have studied funerary art. Effigies. False doors. Psychopomps. It's not too late. Halftime adjustments. Hair pins. Hat pins. Softly.

Shaking earth

2010-08-02T20:21:00.000-07:00

I just spent two hours reading when I should have been working. Now I feel guilty, tired. My hair is curling uncontrollably.

Summer Reading List

2010-07-03T11:22:00.000-07:00

Books I have read this summer. The list begins--and shall grow as I continue reading! I think it's safe to say I'm not doing well so far in my thesis topic-search reading*, though I'm excelling in my pop culture reading.

One Con Glory by Sarah Kuhn
The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson
Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson
Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris
Scott Pilgrim Vol. 1-5 by Bryan Lee O'Malley
Lost in Translation by Eva Hoffman*
Nineteen Seventy Four by David Peace
Do I Dare Disturb the Universe?: From the Projects to Prep School by Charlise Lyles*
Miracle Girl by Keith Scribner
Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey
The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson
The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle
Shade by Jeri Smith-Ready
Suicide Notes by Michael Thomas Ford
Ways with Words: Language, Life and Work in Communities and Classroom by Shirley Brice Heath*
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan
The Gendered Pulpit: Preaching in American Protestant Spaces by Roxanne Mountford*
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day by Joan Bolker*
The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt
Troubling a Star by Madeleine L'Engle
The Anti-Muffins by Madeleine L'Engle
Race Matters by Cornel West*
Breathless by Jessica Warman
Elantris by Brandon Sanderson
Rampant by Diana Peterfreund

9

2010-06-18T10:02:00.000-07:00

is divisible by three. Cheers.

This time

2010-05-20T00:59:00.000-07:00

I went to the dentist today after four years away. Prodigal mouth. The office seemed much the same, except in place of the children's toys, there was now a small table with a television on it blasting Beauty and the Beast. The tv was about at child eye level. A man laughed at me when I clenched my eyes shut at one particularly earsplitting moment when Gaston sang that he was roughly the size of a barge. Shutting your eyes, unfortunately, does not block out sound. I have one small cavity. The office no longer had my file on hand. It had been sent somewhere called Iron Mountain. I imagine it is very safe there.

Last night I watched a movie where Sam Rockwell blew Kate Beckinsale's head off with a shotgun. I can see why it wasn't a big hit. This movie also featured a forgotten stuffed bunny, a drowned child, a tell-tale hotel receipt in a husband's pocket, the Holy Spirit, Amy Sedaris, and a dog named Bomber.

It's raining again. Maybe summer will stay away a little longer. Maybe it will pass us by this year. We can only hope. And control the revolution of the planet. And build a diabolical weather machine because, really, is there any other kind?

File under "H" for "Huh?" 7

2010-05-15T18:30:00.000-07:00

File name: rathertired
Content: Last night I dreamed that a dark double of General Allenby attacked me in Moreland(Lesswater!). As if he even needs a dark double. Jesus H.

File name:succor
Content: There's nothing better than finding something magnificent quite by accident.

File name: nomore
Content: Isaac may have (and that's a big may) forgiven Abraham, but I don't think I ever did.

File name: thereasonwhyis
Content: I was 18, and Darth Vader was on my side.

File name: erized
Content: Everything about me says possible, but somewhat unlikely

File name: paranoos
Content:Dear Paranoia,

I love you, too.

M

File name: M.A.
Content: Sometimes all I want is to stop answering questions, to sit in near-silence with a cup of coffee, and to write fiction. Grad school is a mixture of longing and dread.

File name: why hello
Content: Three people I would like to have met: Constance Fenimore Woolson, Richard Nixon, and John Winthrop.

File name: yourivorytowerisugly
Content: Eating this tootsie pop, conjugating Russian verbs in my head 5x fast, I feel as though I've made some kind of awful mistake.

File name: soup
Content: Liking soup is a lot easier than understanding academic blather.
There's no reason to compare the two.
But I just did.

File name: beware
Content: There is something very dangerous about good writing.

Religionist History

2010-03-29T21:48:00.000-07:00

Once, I tried to make matzo ball soup. Having never made or eaten such soup before, having never even seen it, I had few experiences to draw upon. I had no idea those little matzo balls would expand in the soup, very dumplingesque things. I simply hadn't expected it. The recipe said make them dime or nickel-sized in circumference. I made golf ball-sized, and they expanded quite a bit in the broth. Giant matzo balls. Zombie Jesus practically died and rose again choking on one. Once I'd patted him soundly on the back a number of times, we discussed whether or not Mariette was really in Ecstasy, or if she was just faking. Ketchup and fainting spells have been around a long time.

September 15th became the Feast Day of Our Lady of Sorrows in 1913. Do you remember the seven sorrows? I do. Thanks, Catholic School! Simeon (He was righteous, you know. Give him leave to go in peace; his eyes saw salvation) prophesying over Jesus. Jesus and parents fleeing to Egypt (Mean ol' Herod!). Jesus lost for three days (About "His Father's business," possibly stock trading) Jesus and Mary along Via Dolorosa. Crucifixion. Descent. Burial.

"If many remedies are prescribed for an illness, you may be certain that the illness has no cure." Thank you, Chekhov, but I think Washington is heading to cut down your cherry tree. He's after any tree. Really. Any. A beaver in a tricornered hat. Buckles bedamned, he's coming for the entire orchard, Anton, but first he's going to skip silver dollars across the Potomac.

I like that unnatural, unpeopled world. I like it a lot.

2010-02-02T23:46:00.000-08:00

"There are no live persons facing the writer to clarify his thinking by their reactions. There is no feed-back. There are no auditors to look pleased or puzzled. This is a desperate world, a terrifying world, a lonely, unpeopled world, not at all the world of natural oral-aural exchange."

Ong, Walter J. "Literacy and Orality in Our Times." ADE Bulletin 58 (1978). 1-7. Print.

Enough blue in the air

2009-12-07T03:16:00.000-08:00

"If a modern author, for example, presents a characterization of Satan in their text, they are far more likely to have in mind John Milton's representation of Satan in his epic poem Paradise Lost than in any literal notion of the Christian Devil." -Graham Allen. Things I like here: 1. Tradition first. You just can't help yourself. Vampires don't sparkle, they burst into flames. 2. Christian Devil as one proper noun 3. "Epic poem." Think how much work it would take to be an epic poem writer. I have a hard enough time making myself do laundry.

I just wrote 28 pages. It took me 2 days though. 11 Day 1, 17 Day 2. Specific writing moments fuel: Caffeine, Apple Cider Powder, a Delicious BLT made by Iron Chef Marjimoto, and a Zinger. Procrastination is not my friend. Also, I'm not sure if I have enough, whatever the opposite of lazy is (see? I was too lazy to think of the word), to pursue higher education. The images in my paper are not printing well. They're adequate though. My purposes are neither grand nor particularly relevant--to anything.

I tell myself, this year will be the year I will receive the medieval baptismal font I've always wanted for Christmas. Maybe if two or three people go in on this together? Remember Psalm 37:3-4? "Trust in the Lord and do good, Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart." One wonders, just exactly what does "delight" constitute, and will there be a medieval baptismal font in my future if I kick this delight into overdrive? Of course there's the other tricky business about trusting, doing good, dwelling, and feeding and so forth. If "the land" is the Nixon Library and if "His faithfulness" is tofu teriyaki bento, I am so there.

I left my head and my heart on the dance floor

2009-12-05T05:13:00.000-08:00

I love modal verbs. I really do. I care about possibility, ability, permission, duty, necessity! I care about things being true or not. Do I have the obligation? The requirement? Have I the physical and mental capacity? Can I? Is it permitted? Optional? Am I intentioned? Is the moral obligation looming large? Sorry, no time to talk; off to the simple future. The implied simple future. The Simple Future. That would make a good title.

Getting a new high score on Bejeweled Blitz is not the form my productivity should be taking.

A cheesy quote has been on a chalkboard in my classroom for the last 2.5 weeks. It's something cliche about not telling someone not to fly and reaching for the moon or some such. It has that disturbing, faux assertive tone to it that is common in sayings about reaching for the moon that are directly addressed to some offending party who has once discouraged the speaker. I've considered erasing it on aesthetic principle alone, but I find I am lazy. Impassible. I simply do not care enough to erase the quote. Other people teach in that classroom all day. I think, I may be lazy, but what about these folks? Are they lazy, too? Do they just not care enough to erase a board they're not going to write on? Do they take their picture in front of the quote every day trying to start one of those me-every-day-for-five-million-days picture-movies people like to make? I like when they add the Peanuts theme as background music. It's like I'm a mime all over again, chasing an invisible lottery ticket through a park filled with obstacles.

I don't pretend to be Giles Corey all the time. Just now and then. Similarly, I do not pretend to be Asaji Washizu all the time. Just when going to and from the kitchen and when pretending random objects are spears.

New motto: Why focus when you can fragment?

Raise it to the sky, hold your crown up high

2009-11-15T02:58:00.000-08:00

Both Neil Gaiman and Amanda Fucking Palmer appeared in a dream I had the other night. This dream also featured a sea of dead cars, a fair (of course with Faris wheel [Yes, I can rename passenger gondola wheelies if I damn well please]), the Linn County Court House traffic offenses office, and a small cafe as bright and cheery as can be. Pink and black striped sleeves. Basements. Locked doors. It was nice to not dream of teaching and the perils therein for once. Perhaps it was because I fell asleep while still drunk after watching M and half of Casablanca because I asserted that one could easily jump between Peter Lorre movies, even if only one of those movies overtly featured real Nazis. The mafioso was the Nazi in M. He had a bowler hat. And leather gloves. I pointed out how Jon Lewis emphasized that in Rome, Open City, the Nazis have a plan for the city! They're going to restructure it according to said Nazi plan. They're going to turn the women against you, luring them with drugs, furs, and lesbian sex. Because that is what Nazis do. Oh you, Rossellini. It won the grand prize at Cannes.

I shall now pen a letter. Dear Italian Neo-Realists, I watched the Catholics and Communists collaborate in Open City, and I thought perhaps now they could do the same. I am writing you today to tell you about a great opportunity. Have you heard of the majestic turkey vulture? Let me fill you in, dearhearts...

It is very hard to get a prize for a book that has not been written. Almost impossible. You've no idea.

With the internet, think just how much of our lives are spent searching. I'm a fucking mystic. They do tend to pursue, don't they. To seek. To search. There's a town in Iowa named Mystic. It is very small. The census person probably only need a few pages of a yellow legal pad to jot it down. 500 or so people? Almost all white. Mystic coal. A creek. The end of businesses before they've even begun. Perhaps I am unkind.

I need to spend every minute of the next week reading if I am to make any sense of anything. I cannot possibly do this, of course, which means meaning shall elude me; and I'm destined to babble my poor superior to death with a horribly-written paper in the infancy of my graduate "career." Send zombies. I'm not live; I'm Memorex.

Even if I decided wholeheartedly, without hesitation, and with great fervor that today I will be frightfully clever, I'm not sure it would come to much. Bit dismal as of late. Teaching very difficult. Lots of writing to be done. Constantly. Any worse than as an undergrad? Probably not. Same worries? Yes, but magnified. Responsibilities? Increased.

Clifford Geertz is out interpreting cultures. God^Marj rest his soul.
I'm eating instant oatmeal ~~rish~~ with raisins (got a bit ahead of myself there).
Pomegranate vodka is a very foul thing, a very foul thing indeed.
Lawrence says "nothing is written."
Arwen says "some things are certain."
In a battle between a conflicted British officer and an elf who once dreamed of fucking Rex Manning, who wins?
Hard to say really. Hard to say.

Listification

2009-11-08T12:48:00.001-08:00

~~Email students with reminders for Tuesday's class~~
Read 1-58 of Convergence Culture
Write response to Convergence Culture
Read 95-134 of Convergence Culture
Write response to 95-134 of Convergence Culture
~~Lesson plan for Tuesday (Grammar Day! Raise high the banners!) and Thursday (Final draft due, expect nobody to do readings!)~~
~~Write Toulmin + inductive/deductive reasoning quiz~~
~~Do the three Democracy-related tasks from the previous list (You ne'er-do-well! List cross-over? Extreme laziness? Get on top of things!)~~
~~Read student drafts of essay 2 and respond via email~~
~~Send students questions/guidelines for essay 2~~
Reread Old School
Finish reading Fun Home
Read Blankets
Read Epileptic
~~Read a bunch of researchy books and articles about graphic novels.~~

Disaster Log

2009-10-28T00:53:00.000-07:00

The day started out well. I had high hopes and excellent lesson plans. The day ended with me sitting in my car crying. I came home to fresh sushi and chow mein. And hugs. Put on my robot jammies. This weekend I will visit Mother and Schwester Zwei, grade 25 essays, do a lot of graphic novels research. Now I can cross off "Write a real blog post." What an accomplished young lady I am.

To do: Ta da:

2009-10-23T14:14:00.001-07:00

~~Start researching representations of literacy (events? myth? practices? contact zones?) in non-fiction graphic novels~~
~~Write 10 pages of creative non-fiction~~
~~Read Elbow or Bishop article~~
~~Respond to Elbow or Bishop article~~
~~Wonder why I am the only first year in Rhetoric and Writing who is also teaching. (How will I build my army?)~~
~~517 Midterm Reflection ("I was four the year the circus came to our little town on the prairie...")~~
Read Gee's Why Video Games are Good for your Soul
~~Respond to Gee ("I find your lack of faith disturbing...")~~
~~Read last section of Gee (sigh sigh sigh)~~
~~Respond to Gee~~
~~Reread 121 readings~~
~~Lesson plan for Tuesday and Thursday~~
Read Democracy
Plan 7 min discussion of Democracy
~~Use new diabolical weather machine to plan distracting thunderstorm for day of Democracy discussion~~
~~Read In Pharaoh's Army Part I~~
~~Read In Pharaoh's Army Parts II and III~~
~~Email students on Sunday to remind them to do ILP tutorials and to include all elements of Unit 1 Portfolio.~~
~~Write a real blog post~~

To do:

2009-10-04T11:27:00.001-07:00

~~Read Shaleena and Jeremy's thesis prospectuses for MAWG~~
Read chpaters 1-3, 7, and 9 of The Longman Teaching Assistant's Handbook
~~Read Didion essays~~
Read The Medium is the Massage
Write response to The Medium is the Massage
~~Read article for practicum~~
~~Write response to article for practicum~~
~~Reread 121 assignments~~
~~Lesson plan for Tuesday and Thursday~~
Ten zillion other things for 121
Try not to be overwhelmed by crippling doubt and fear
~~Get parking permit for the Bubble Mower~~
~~Decide on seminar paper topic for Language, Technology, & Culture~~
~~Think about literacy and technology narrative~~
~~Scan and email Martin article to class~~
~~Pick up books on hold at public library~~

The handbook said that if I made a list and checked it off (one for the weekend, one for the week, one for long term, etc), I would feel accomplished as I went along. I would also be organized and get things done. I made this list. I did some things. I feel anything but accomplished. Unless, of course, one considers the expert art of bemoaning an accomplishment.

Ringing in October

2009-10-01T00:20:00.000-07:00

School has started up again. Summer recap? This summer I read some books, visited with family quite a bit, got married, went to Vegas, worked at the Writing Center a great deal, ate a lot of tater tots, wrote a paper for Lisa's book, made first contact with the entities known as editors (frightful!), painted my toenails once, spent too much time in the sun, and went to orientation to learn about the fine art of teaching.

I taught my first class on Tuesday. It went all right. Tomorrow I'm starting class with Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall." If I were a freshman and were going to discuss issues in education, that's what I'd want to watch. Who doesn't love late 70s rock operas, I ask you, who? Crazy people.

I can imagine Big Bird as a methhead. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has thought of it.

I'm really tired. I'm going to go read a book. This post has too many sentences that begin with "I." Next up, "you."

The Book Smugglers

2009-09-19T19:50:00.000-07:00

I've become particularly fond of The Book Smugglers. Collaboration. Books. Reviewing. They're marvelous. They share my love of bookery (and unreliable narrators! aww, they're so precious) and especially my liking of young adult books. Quite often those get overlooked or disregarded as unimportant, but many of the books that shaped who I am and how I view the world are young adult books. Oh yes, I value other books too, but it's nice to see a website paying attention to young adult novels and speculative fiction and what not. I'm not very fond of romance (as a genre. I don't mind when it's incorporated into other books), but there is plenty to like at the Book Smugglers. They review everything from the super popular and obvious choices (Neil Gaiman, Suzanne Collins) to the not-so-expected (Margo Lanagan, Megan Whalen Turner). Their reviews are thoughtful and engaging, and you can tell they love reading and writing about what they read. I've found all kinds of new series and authors by reading their reviews, and for that I am ever so grateful.

P.T. Barnum lies

2009-08-31T23:36:00.000-07:00

I am going to start signing all letters, emails, texts, etc in the manner of P.T. Barnum writing to the editor of the Nation: "In great haste, truly yours." I think it will add that little something extra to my professional correspondence.

Sometimes I make up jokes that feature P.T. Barnum and Captain Ahab walking into a bar.

I was once a ventriloquist in Barnum's American Museum. It was the only job I could get that didn't involve selling opium for John Jacob Astor.

File under "H" for "Huh?" 6

2009-08-23T19:11:00.000-07:00

File name: reporting
Contents: From the couch : "I hate you, Gretta van Susteren."

File name: twilight2
Contents: After I complained to S that Jessica's hair wasn't right in Twilight: "There were no Elves at Helm's Deep!"

File name: holidays
Contents: The Cranberry Baklava fumes are going to her head.

File name: sonotfair
Contents: It just galls me that John Larison was right.

File name: honey
Contents: I love you like a Full Text Electronic Journal list.

File name: plight
Contents: Last term, I heard a girl describe Modernism as "that time with all the flowery language..." I damn near had a heart attack right then and there.

File name: awholenewworld
Contents: "Who introduces Disney movies now?" "Hitler."

File name: unicorn
Contents: Today I told Matt that the future is now! Tomorrow Harrison Ford will freak out when he sees an origami unicorn. Anyone would, knowing what he knows.

File name: whoathere
Contents: I want a walking stick with a snake's head that kills people and transports me back in time.

File name: hehe
Contents: "Let's watch the X-Files movie, Buddy!" "It's Stanley Kubrick's finest hour!"

File name: writingamusical
Contents: [Children sing in unison while doing the traditional Zombie Jesus Day dance]
"It's gonna be the best Zombie Jesus Day ever!
It's gonna be the best Zombie Jesus Day yet!
It's gonna be the best Zombie Jesus Day ever!
It's gonna be the best Zombie Jesus Day yet!"

Survive or Revise

2009-07-16T01:27:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I actually said, "Oh noes! I is caught in new rhetorical situation!" Your undergraduate years turn your brain into academic LOL sludge like that. And then, you build a sand castle or something. It's all talk. I'm shifting my eyes dodgily. Dodgily. That's right. I adverbed it. AND moved the adverb away from the verb. I'm living on the edge.

Psst! Those fish, those fish over there. I think they're eating TetraFin. I read that it has the Omega-3 fatty acides needed to foster fish growth and energy! Immune boosting! You probably wish you were a fish.

When I forget Tobey Maguire's name, I refer to him as Spiderman Who Performs Abortions.

When I learn to knit, I can make hats. Hats for everyone. Somehow, despite my excitement over the idea of being surrounded by hats of all colors and head sizes, I have made somewhere between little and no effort to actually learn to knit. So if you've written down on next week's calendar, "Hideous afghan knitted by Marjorie arriving by post," I'd suggest pushing that back until at least January 2011.

I was typing my outro for an OWL just now which goes something like "Because the Online Writing Lab is limited by time and space, I’m unable to go over everything that might be of use to you when choosing how to revise." But instead of "revise," I typed "survive." Choosing how to survive is very important as well. Hopefully she knows this already without added help from the Writing Center.

I haven't blogged in a month, and I still have nothing to say.

It started to pour

2009-06-21T01:31:00.000-07:00

8

2009-06-18T00:47:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday

Summer Bookery

2009-06-16T18:22:00.001-07:00

Right on schedule, the beginning of the summer reading list. It's good to record books one has read in the summer. This shall be updated as books get read.

Bad to the Bone by Jeri Smith-Ready
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Forty Stories by Donald Barthelme
And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks by William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac
Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
Lives on the Boundary: A Moving Account of the Struggles and Achievements of America's Educationally Underprepared by Mike Rose
Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez by Richard Rodriguez
Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris
Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris
Club Dead by Charlaine Harris
Dead to the World by Charlaine Harris
Dead as a Doornail by Charlaine Harris
Definitely Dead by Charlaine Harris
All Together Dead by Charlaine Harris
From Dead to Worse by Charlaine Harris
Thank You for All Things by Sandra King
Everything Beautiful by Simmone Howell
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Going Too Far by Jennifer Echols
Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris
The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell
Ill Wind by Rachel Caine
The Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell
The Boy Orator by Tracy Daugherty
It Takes a Worried Man by Tracy Daugherty
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Axeman's Jazz by Tracy Daugherty
They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
Heat Stroke by Rachel Caine
The Secret Countess by Eva Ibbotson
The Academic Writer: A Brief Guide by Lisa Ede
Readings for OSU Writers (no editor listed)
The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner

Some are born to sweet delight, some are born to endless night

2009-06-08T22:48:00.000-07:00

I have one more final left on Thursday. Tracy was kind enough to provide us with the questions in advance. Today I did fantastic things. I went to school and sat in the quad and read a book I actually wanted to read rather than one I had to. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. I haven't read much of her work before. Quite impressed. Thought-provoking book. I then went to Jarrod's thesis defense. I had never been in Hovland before, so it was quite the experience. I learned about mystical poetry. I asked a question, though I had tons. There just wasn't enough time. But really, when and where is there enough time for all my questions? He passed (yay!). Had dinner with Dennis and his daughter. She is marvelous. I was happy to meet her finally. Also, beer and sammiches are good for one's health. Then I went to Safeway and bought olives at the olive island of most certain d00m! It's been a pleasant day filled with little requiring effort and most everything as it should be in the world.

Everything just feels likes rain

2009-06-05T02:17:00.000-07:00

"And as we all know from experiments conducted during the Korean War,Diane, sleep deprivation is a one-way ticket to temporary psychosis." -Agent Dale Cooper

I went to bed at 5 last night after writing, printing, and becoming angrified at my 50 poems for class. The collection is entitled Tea with Baba Yaga. I got three hours of sleep, woke to find David Carradine was dead (godfuckingdamnit), and went to school for my last four undergraduate classes. After writing and turning in 20 pages and taking one scheduled final, I'll be done with my BA. I'll be so happy to be done. Mother is having a celebratory BBQ after finals week, and all manner of merriness shall be had. She's using the BBQ as an excuse to get me to bring her the last two books in the Twilight Saga. Ha. She too has found how awful they are and how addictive.

I took a 2-hour nap after coming home from school and eating some chicken. There was a glorious storm this afternoon. Winds. Pouring, drenching rain. Thunder. Lightning. The evil Genocide Awareness Project people were out in the quad. A very Catholic student with whom I have classes, with her Lifeguard (Right to Life) shirt on, scowled at me when I joked that with all those fences, there was a good chance of them either packing up early or getting struck by lightning in an ironic display of god's awesome power. I stood in Moreland (Lesswater!) watching the storm feeling quite happy and content. My weather had returned! The lights flickered throughout Post World War II Novels. We sympathized and become frustrated with Gogol. In the Namesake. No qualms were had about the original Gogol. And I clutched my coat happily. Nabokov is right about beauty and pity. The first time I read "The Overcoat," I was in 7th grade, and I almost couldn't believe it. It took a long time to read because I was translating it from Russian to English. I'd only had a year and a half of Russian, so everything unfolded slowly--the plans for the coat, the choices to be made, the party in honor of the coat (how out of place he was!), and the crushing thievery. I could barely believe it when Akaky was left in the snow, and still felt sad and disturbed as his ghost haunted St. Petersberg; I felt almost displaced myself. And even though a lot of it was probably horribly translated, the story itself was still the kind that made you shake your head and lean back in your chair and exclaim "Jesus, Gogol..."

My eyes are all puffy and swollen. Itchy. I got eye drops, but to little or no avail. I'm racing Benadryl. It wants me to sleep. The OWL queue wants me to work. It doesn't matter that these things cannot possibly want.

Flouridation of water

2009-05-30T02:06:00.000-07:00

Today I did many things. Sort of. I went to school to have a talk with a professor. I turned in homework since I missed all of my classes yesterday with a 10 hours sinus headache. I booked a room for a reception following the wedding of d00m. Did you know that Gad is one of the sons of Zilpah? I did. Read yer Genesis 30. Gad was also a Hebrew prophet. Read yer Samuel. Numero Dos. I'm watching Dr. Strangelove. Top Secret. I need to write a paper by Tuesday on Gilead. I could write about Zero or The Known World, but I'd much rather write about Gilead, though I haven't a lot to say at the moment. Allergies are kicking my ass. I don't look good in dresses. Once I finish all my finals, there are half a zillion books I want to read. Moving soon. I wish I had enough time to learn to write with my left hand.

An imitation Christ

2009-05-23T01:54:00.001-07:00

A spider just descended upon me. From above. It was white. Long-legged. Delicately brushing my bangs. A fucking horror. I yelled. So very loudly. I hope the neighbors didn't hear. When I was young, I once yelled because a spider was crawling toward my foot. The neighbors called the police, who came and circled the house, guns drawn. Their response was admirable, but I do not think they fully understood the gravity of the situation when explained to them after they verified my safety. This was similar, only worse. The spider touched me. It brushed me. It was soon dead on the floor beneath my Shaq shoe. It broke the treaty. I suspect it was offended by a post of mine from September, 2006 which I had just read only a half hour earlier. Who are you? What do you want?

♥ Mamma Mia ♥

2009-05-17T20:14:00.001-07:00

Enjoy this video of the amazing Lucilla DeMoore and Tanzi Valentine at the OSU Drag Show!

Language of orientation

2009-05-13T07:42:00.000-07:00

"Religion is a framing mechanism...a language of orientation that presents itself as a series of questions. It talks about the arc of life and the quality of experience in ways that I’ve found fruitful to think about." -Marilynne Robinson

We all wanna save the world

2009-05-06T23:28:00.000-07:00

...but I'm gonna do it.

Was all this canned beef a good thing?

2009-04-27T23:26:00.000-07:00

That question was asked by Miles Orvell from Temple University in his talk "Main Street in the American Mind: Crucible, Crossroads, Utopia." It's a question we all wonder about, no doubt. No doubt.

I have just barely revised and printed out a paper I wrote on Saturday, read 199 pages, considered most considerably my next paper due Thursday (it shall be dreadful, I fear; I haven't the heart for it right now. After 4 years, you'd think it would get easier; it doesn't), written 1 page of heartless paper, read a chapter about writing, read a short story, and then wrote a 2 page response. I get the sense that if I stop for a moment and procrastinate, I may never accomplish anything ever again. And I feel as though I've just woken up after a nap in the late afternoon to find that it's now dark and time is running out if I am to salvage any of the day to feel as though anything has really been accomplished. And this after having gotten up at 6:30, worked, and done all of the aforementioned activities. Also, I have eaten half a pork chop and a large salad. There is simply never enough time.

I want to curl up in a ball and watch Lawrence of Arabia in HD for the next five weeks. Fast forward to summer. There are things to do.

I haven't updated my blog in ages. And this isn't really an update. When you start three sentences with "and," you're just running from one thing to the next. And right now, I think I'll leave Ruthie reconfiguring darkness; and you, dear reader, you can pretend you're Virgie's struggle with hard plaid.

So what?

2009-04-02T22:06:00.000-07:00

Of course, no matter how keenly, how admirably, a story, a piece of music, a picture is discussed and analyzed, there will be minds that remain blank and spines that remain unkindled. “To take upon us the mystery of things” — what King Lear so wistfully says for himself and for Cordelia — this is also my suggestion for everyone who takes art seriously. A poor man is robbed of his overcoat (Gogol’s “The Greatcoat”, or more correctly “The Carrick”); another poor fellow is turned into a beetle (Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis”) — so what? There is no rational answer to “so what”. We can take the story apart, we can find out how the bits fit, how one part of the pattern responds to the other; but you have to have in you some cell, some gene, some germ that will vibrate in answer to sensations that you can neither define, nor dismiss. Beauty plus pity — that is the closest we can get to a definition of art. Where there is beauty there is pity for the simple reason that beauty must die: beauty always dies, the manner dies with the matter, the world dies with the individual.

From “The Metamorphosis”, an essay in Lectures on Literature by Vladimir Nabokov

Breaking Spring

2009-03-30T00:18:00.000-07:00

Even educated guesses are still just guesses.

Cheap imitation crab fish have always aspired to be something more. There was never really any hope for them. Really.

Read on the comments of Republica's "Drop Dead Gorgeous" video on youtube: "on occasion and without warning, god can be a cunt." The deity in me is hurt.

Look for my new book: What is Needed: Six Tips to Avoid Traps. Chapter 1: I Wear Sunscreen Every Day

It's the weekend before school starts up again. I have 11 more weeks to go as an undergrad. And it's possible I could make it through without a B, which would be nice, though I fear the poetry class for which I have so foolishly signed up. I have a plastic container full of hot pink, green, yellow, and orange eraser tops; and I'm not afraid to use them.

This past week I slept a great deal. Read Inkheart and Home. Started Inkspell. Watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Quantum of Solace, Rachel Getting Married, Synecdoche, New York, Tales of the Black Freighter, Coraline, Pineapple Express, and, of course, Twilight. Much movie-ing. And much watching of basketball. My bracket is totally fucked. That happens when you haven't much of a clue what you're doing. Though I do think mine was better than Mr. President's.

Not really feeling ready for school on Tuesday. But that's all right. I'm never much ready for anything.

Post 666 is coming up in about 4 posts, I think. How exciting!

Spring's begun. I'm sniffling and sneezing every day.

Now why would you want to go and do a foolhardy thing like that?

2009-03-16T01:24:00.000-07:00

It is my sincere hope that "foolhardy" does not become obsolete any time soon. It takes a village.

I haven't updated in a while. I'm currently only updating to avoid working any further on my research paper (Post-Colonialism final). And by "working," I mean "researching a topic." And by "researching a topic," I mean "updating my blog." And by "updating my blog," I mean "overusing quotation marks." I am somewhat frustrated, as the assignment directions say that I should choose two or three critical sources for what is apparently the most mini lit review (2 or 3 pages) known to marj. Two or three people? What kind of a conversation is that? An incredibly focused one I'm not sure I want to have is what. I don't want to focus on two or three people. I want to talk to the whole world.

It's only one in the morning, but I'm tired. It's only one more week until Spring Break.

There's no crowd when the apocalypse is going on. The voice from the couch just told me so. My hands are cold, and I've been reading about the Duvalier dictatorship. Papa Doc. "President for Life." Tonton Macoutes. And such ugly ugly happenings. I'll have to save my powers of concision for tomorrow. I should be productive. There are such benefits of productivity. The problem is I have so very little motivation. And most everything has already been said before. This doesn't make me miserable at all. And I'm not being sarcastic.

The rest of the story

2009-02-28T18:03:00.000-08:00

Paul Harvey died. He was 90. A long life, but it's still sad he's dead. Quite a pioneer. I remember listening to him every morning on the bus ride to elementary school. We all did. I think everyone knew his voice. He'll be missed.

Happy Birthday, S!

2009-02-25T08:11:00.000-08:00

♥ ♥ ♥

Oh my, bookery pie

2009-02-15T13:51:00.001-08:00

Stole from Rhetorical Wasteland who stolez from facebook.

BBC Book List

Apparently the BBC reckons most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here.
Instructions:
1) Look at the list and put an ‘x’ after those you have read.
2) Add a ‘+’ to the ones you LOVE.
3) Star (*) those you plan on reading.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen X
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien X+
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte X
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling X+
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee X+
6 The Bible X
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte *(reading now)
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell X
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman X+
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens *
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott X
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy X
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller *
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier *
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien X
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger X
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger *
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot *
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell X
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald X
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens *
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy *
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams X
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky X+
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck X
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll X
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame X
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy X+
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens *
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis X
34 Emma - Jane Austen X
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen X
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis X
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini X
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Berniere
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden X
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne X
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell X
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown X
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez X
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery X
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy *
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood *
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding X
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert X+
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons (seen the movie!)
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen X
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens X
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley X
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon X
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck X
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov *
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold X
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas X
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac X
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding X
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville X+
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens *
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker X+
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett X
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath X
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt *
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens X
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell *
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White X
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Alborn X
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle X
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad X
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery X
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas X
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare X+
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl X
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo X

Total read: 56
Total I want to read: 14
Total I love: 9

Yes, I have read the Bible in its entirety. I was an intrepid youngster. Plus, it is full of fucked up stories. So I guess I'm 50 over what they expect, but what surprises me is what is included. I'm especially surprised by the fact that works from the non-western world don't seem to be included much, if at all. We've got mostly British, American, and Russian here. And apart from Jane Austen, there are very few women on this list. J.K. Rowling, Alice Walker. Sylvia Plath. A few others. And while certainly, there are some amazing works there, I wonder where they think everyone fell off in terms of fiction. Suffice it to say, it's still extremely important that we interrogate the canon. There's so much missing. But who do you remove if you include someone else? That's always the question, but why can't the canon just keep growing until its huge? Does it need to be relevant to the current world? Or can we trust who was chosen in the past? No. Goodbye, Mitch Albom. I would write more, but I really need to get back to work and to reading about post colonialism for tomorrow.

I'm not awkward. For reals.

2009-02-13T07:52:00.001-08:00

Got engaged

2009-02-12T13:27:00.001-08:00

As such, getting married.
Probably July.

Something

2009-02-08T00:06:00.000-08:00

I haven't been this tired in a long time. The trip to Oklahoma sickened me. Physically. Mentally. As if the world is a little less beautiful; faith in people a little shakier. And after all that being pretty much broke until the end of the month, and now being sick. And for what? To see the family hurt and be labelled demonic. Thanks. It's not worth writing about. School has most certainly suffered. My last story was a trainwreck. I wrote a 9 page midterm in 4 hours last night. I have another midterm due Monday. I'm hundreds of pages behind in readings. I can feel my grades dropping. The last few days have been spent with a fever, store throat, lots of gatorade, pounding headaches, and far too much sleep considering all that needs to be done. I'm sad. Bit heartbroken.

Goodbye and Hello!

2009-01-20T20:51:00.000-08:00

I'm delighted.

It's not just for life, it's for Christmas!

2009-01-19T23:39:00.001-08:00

Today I celebrated Edgar Allan Poe's 200th birthday. I put a few beating hearts in the floor, petted a black cat, thought many dark thoughts, and contracted TB.

I also did an OWL, read A Midsummer Night's Dream, read a bunch of info about the Aztec that I didn't quite understand, and watched House and a lot of sports. It will be so depressing when there's no more football and soon after no more basketball, which isn't wonderful to begin with, but is at least something.

The other day, I watched Richard III. Let me tell you about it. Fascist England. Gandalf is a bit of an asshole. And deformed. No throne for him. Now, he kills off Plum Berkeley's husband and then is all "I must have you!" She marries him, doesn't get any sex, and becomes a drug addict. Meanwhile, back at the castle, the intrepid real estate agent, Carolyn Burnham, and wife of Bishop of Aquila,is all jolly her brother, Ironman, has returned. Aquila is dying. Gandalf and Horace Slughorn are incahoots to take over the country. They know it has been said that McNulty will one day have the throne, so they gotta work fast and furious. They kill off Ironman, Aquila, Plum, and the sons of Carolyn. Professor McGonagall, mom of damn near everyone, is pissed off. She curses Gandalf! McNulty secretly marries Carolyn's daughter, with whom Gandalf wished to come together in holy matrimony. He kills Gandalf and takes the throne. Prophecy fulfilled.

School is being difficult. I'm all random letters and spin. I have a story due in a week and a half. I've got nothing.

Tomorrow = New president.

Miss Marjie's tsk tsk of the day

2009-01-19T22:09:00.000-08:00

In my Ovid class, the professor explained to a student how Medusa got the snakes. Medusa was raped by Neptune in Minerva's temple. Minerva, super famous (and mean) virgin goddess that she was, punished Medusa for this by turning her hair to snakes and giving her the power of turning anyone who looked directly at her to stone. The guy sitting behind me in class hears the story and says, "Neptune is now my favorite so far in this class." I ask, "The guy who rapes a woman in a temple is your favorite?" He nods. Laughs. "Everyone was doing it back then." This is the same person who in our uncanny novel class made sure to let us all know that he didn't let his wife do certain things. For example, when she wanted to get their son into dance classes, he said "fuck no." Sometimes people make me so sick.

And here we go

2009-01-04T02:07:00.000-08:00

Shall I have new year's resolutions? 2009 goals? Shall I, yes? Shall I, darlings?

1. ~~Finish applying for grad school~~
2. ~~Get into grad school~~
3. ~~Learn to knit~~
4. ~~Knit shit~~

Blog Year in Review

2008-12-31T17:17:00.000-08:00

Take the first sentence (or 2 or 3) from the first post of each month of 2008. That's your year in review. Meow meow meow.

January: have to go to school tomorrow. It's 12:35, the night before, and it still hasn't quite set in. I took some advil pm to ensure I'll sleep at a normal time. If I only hadn't sold Foucault, I could fall asleep in no time.

February: I went to the authentic happiness site posted by Laura and took a few tests. I only got a 2.46 on the authentic happiness inventory, but honestly, I'm not sure how much I trust any 24-question evaluation of my happiness. Apparently my top strength is forgiveness and mercy.

March: I read CNN every morning. It wakes me up to see who we've bombed, who's named their babies, and how to make a thinner, sexier you!

April: There is a mousey in the basement. I am more afraid of him than he is of me. I shall give him a name so that in familiarizing myself with mousey, I may also distance myself. Mousey, thou shalt be known as Bizarro Stormy, henceforth and forevermore

May: I just stumbled across this strange article from 1998 about "pogo stick days" on Wall Street. There's this very random-seeming part where my old Russian teacher, feet up on a chair in my old favorite coffee shop in Iowa (Muddy Waters. They made the best BLC&T sandwiches), is used as an example of those who are "bit blasé about the market's gyrations."

June: I have a paper due Monday. I have had three weeks to write it. I'm starting now. Perhaps I type too fast. I keep getting ahead of myself in typing. "May contain" becomes "main." "Grow out" becomes "grout."

July: My friend Ron not Ronald recently graduated and left us all alone at the WC. My boss noted today that I stopped attending meetings after Ron left. Since I never ate the cookies anyway, there was no reason to attend without Ron not Ronald (Yeah, I know, I'm mean).

August: Spent yesterday with HIV, Cancer, and Batman. School, school, not school. There are reasons to hate summer. I made cookies. Chocolate chips combat catastrophe.

September: David Foster Wallace is dead. So sad.

October: I used to have this book about Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I was in 7th grade. It was one of those ones you get at a library book sale. Old with a lot of pictures telling his story. It had a crispy static-loving dust jacket.

November: I'm addicted to the Wire. I don't want another week to end or start. I want an eternal comma. There's a book I want to read. It is time warpy and features lizards and possibly koala attactivity the likes of which this world has never seen before.

December: I'm putting things off again. Yesterday, I responded to a story, did 3 OWLs, but I didn't accomplish much else. I awoke yesterday to a jolly email telling me the bookstore wanted to buy back the HIV/AIDS & STIs book I've been wanting to sell back since summer.

Somewhere ages and ages hence

2008-12-17T17:17:00.000-08:00

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I made coffee and watched Absolutely Fabulous,
And that has made all the difference.

Writing Spaces

2008-12-15T16:20:00.000-08:00

I've become increasingly interested in space, particularly writing space. This probably comes as a result of reading too much about uncanny architecture and poor Godfrey St. Peter's study above his dead house where he wrote his howevermany volumes on the Spanish Adventurers in The Professor's House by Willa Cather. We use language to create and to reflect our reality, certainly. It's only natural then to wonder how much our reality and surroundings shape our use of language.

Below is a video about how architect Andrew Berman designed a writing studio in the woods of Long Island. Berman creates a "door in the woods" with the absence of a building or house surrounding the door itself. Enigmatic indeed. The use of copper was interesting, though I wonder how that would affect someone--slowly watching their writing space go from shiny to matte, from reflective to flat, from orange to green. I imagine most of us don't have the luxury of throwing up a building between a field and the woods solely for writing (or any other purpose for that matter), but I do wonder what our writing spaces would look like if we had the time, money, and ability to shape them exactly as we'd like.

Private Library from A Space In Time on Vimeo.

Eyes of Olympia

2008-12-10T03:55:00.000-08:00

Dear E.T.A Hoffman,

Thank you for "The Sandman."
Really.
You've no idea how much trouble the uncanny is causing me at this moment.
But who could be mad at you?
Really.
Who could be mad at you?

Love,
M

The Indelicates - America

2008-12-08T02:58:00.000-08:00

Patience

2008-12-08T02:45:00.000-08:00

I am waiting for someone to write the book There Is Nothing So Depraved As a Woman with a Casserole Dish.

Not so very much

2008-12-06T13:26:00.000-08:00

I'm putting things off again. Yesterday, I responded to a story, did 3 OWLs, but I didn't accomplish much else. I awoke yesterday to a jolly email telling me the bookstore wanted to buy back the HIV/AIDS & STIs book I've been wanting to sell back since summer.

This is my favorite robot on my favorite pajamas (the DC jammies are a close second). I think this information is probably incredibly important to all one or two of my readers.

I just showered and brainstormed how I would approach the subject of collaboration in the Writing Center and discussions of racism. Villanueva and I are fast becoming friends, even if he is not in any way aware of it. English Major/Writing Centaur crush! He'd probably be disturbed.

The weekend is here, and so rather than being filled with dread as I was all week (waiting for papers to get back, fearing there wouldn't be enough time, dreading the endless scowling students on the couches on Thursday), I feel as though I at least have motivation to do things--the motivation being if I don't, I'll fail miserably.

This is where I spend most of my time lately. Oh you, research.
What? Cause I been in the lab with a pen and a pad tryna get this damn label off? ;)

Things to do not just this weekend, but to finish off the term:
*Add to short story and submit it
*Read a few articles then write 6-8 page paper for WC Theory
*Write seminar paper on The Professor's Uncanny Study
*Study for Metaphysical and Cavalier Poets final
*Take Metaphysical and Cavalier Poets final

Another not-really-a-post post

2008-11-30T03:02:00.000-08:00

I want to build my own little monster. A Count Orlok. A Frankenstein. Maybe a Blaine the Mono. I don't like Anakin's spunky sidekick. That is not why I want to build a monster, of course. I'm just saying.

I watched a not-very-good-at-all movie on Thanksgiving called Neverwas. It had a lot of stars in it. Ian McKellan had a kingdom. Of course.

Something I find just a little creepy: Cookbooks based upon characters and food discussed in Christian fiction (e.g. Mandie, Mitford). Now, I don't say this because my eldest sister once made a chocolate pudding from one of these cookbooks which caused me no small amount of pain for days, including passing out on my way to the bathroom to throw up. No, I say this because there is just something creepy about these books, their potluck characters, their not-even-sneaky didacticism. I'm fairly well-versed in late 80s, early 90s Christian fiction. I'm not sure the damage can ever be undone.

I've taken over a corner of the living room. Books. Paper. So many stacks of articles, essays, chapters of books, OWLs, used paper waiting to be used again. It will take a while to clean up when the term is over.

I subscribed to Pier's Anthony's newsletter in middle school (relevant? nah). In the nanowrimo pep talk for week 4 (I'm not actually nanowrimoing, just observing), he said that "it is the Dreamers who ultimately make life worthwhile for the unimaginative rest of us." So please remember that, Dreamer peoples. I'm counting on you to entertain me for a good long while.

Not a fan of formality. No, not at all really.

Pretty much finished the critical crowbar assignment. And it only took me one day, two hours, and 48 minutes longer than I wanted it to.

Sunday to do: ~~Respond to OWL~~, ~~respond to classmate's short story~~, write own short story, ~~read and respond to 10 pages of thesis~~

Alpha Beta Gamma ZOMG DEF-CON 4!

2008-11-29T21:06:00.000-08:00

So Sara tagged me ages ago to do the alphabet movie meme, and I have finally gotten around to it. This is mainly because there are a ton of other things I should be doing right now but wish to avoid or take a break from. So here it is:

All the President's Men
Brazil
Chinatown
Dead Ringers
Event Horizon
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Go
Happiness
In Cold Blood
JFK
Kolya
L.A. Confidential
Mullholland Drive
No Country for Old Men
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Psycho
Quick and the Dead
Requiem for a Dream
Son of Sam
Touch of Evil
Unforgiven
Videodrome
Wonder Boys
X-Files
You Can't Take It with You
Zodiac

I tag teh Prophet, Scarah, Mikey, and Doc, only two of whom I actually think read this blog (the first and the last). How's that for intentional inefficacy.

And you said it didn't matter

2008-11-23T02:52:00.000-08:00

EugeneTooms vs. The Communists. They're more than a little sneaky.

I feel as though I know so very little about a small amount of subjects. I have this shallow knowledge of English and am constantly wishing I could read more or study something in depth, but I just don't have time. I feel like a calling station. And I have to write and write and write. I feel this growing resentment for the idea that I should always have something to say. As if there is nothing to be said just for shutting the fuck up for a while and listening. Everything's an argument. There's always something to prove.

I have a professor I very much appreciate because he always gives you the benefit of the doubt that you know what the hell you're talking about when he reads your paper. This is useful because quite often I have no idea what I'm going on about for 10-20 pages. I really don't.

I'm tired.
There is a man on tv, and his head is square.
Infomercials are starting, and JFK is ending.
Perhaps it is time to sleep.

Oh you, Dr. Johnson!

2008-11-21T22:31:00.000-08:00

"[Metaphysical poets'] thoughts are often new, but seldom natural; they are not obvious, but neither are they just; and the reader, far from wondering that he missed them, wonders more frequently by what perverseness of industry they were found."

I'm surprised and amused by Dr. Samuel Johnson's vehemence. This violent yoking of ideas is a bit much for him, dear fellow that he is. Overwhelmed by those "combination[s] of confused magnificence that not only could not be credited, but could not be imagined..." Maybe he just wasn't trying hard enough?

blink blink yawn

2008-11-19T17:33:00.000-08:00

I need to write a paper for Metaphysical and Cavalier poets, write a mini critical crowbar assignment, write a paper for Cather/Gilman, read a zillion book chapters and articles, write a paper for WC ind. study, write a short story for my fiction final, write my personal statement, pick a writing sample, respond to grad student's lit review, finish watching the Wire. I just want time to do absolutely nothing. I want writing to disappear.

At the end of the day, I still believe

2008-11-19T10:37:00.000-08:00

we all have a Stradivarius hidden in the closet.
and we've been taking lessons our entire lives.

The end of a long and crappy day

2008-11-13T19:39:00.000-08:00

3 hours of sleep. 1.5 hours of class. 6 hours of work. 1 hour of The Wire. It's my workshop week in fiction class. In the first workshop letter posted, a woman rewrote some of my sentences. In ways that significantly changed the meaning. Said they would be strengthened that way. What the fuck. I should just do OWLs and go to bed.

An election post

2008-11-09T18:59:00.000-08:00

I haven't written about the election yet, but I know I need to write something. What blog could be without it? I voted for Obama. This was the first time the person I voted for had been elected president. Like Patrick, I don't pretend to know all the implications of this election. I have only been alive for the last 26 years, and I expect I will not be alive to see all of the far-reaching effects. I don't expect that Obama will be a perfect president; there aren't any of those, but I'm hoping he will be a good president--one we can respect and learn from and who, hopefully, will learn from us too.

I spent election night at home with Steve. I, like many others, cried a good deal. I thought of my friends who had left the country during Bush's administration. Of those who, regardless of whether or not they stayed or left, felt as though the world was a pretty fucked up place, and the US wasn't helping a whole helluva lot. And it still is a fucked up place, but this is the first time in a long time that I can imagine and hope for a situation in which opportunity for change can be taken advantage of. I don't expect all promises will be kept or that we'll see some insane amount of easy, fast improvement. I am hoping though, that we will have a president who we can respect not just because he is the president, but because of who he is as a person and what he stands for. I'm hoping that we as a nation can show the world we're willing to work for peace, willing to act humanely and respectfully toward other countries, and willing to support each other at home instead of ignoring the problems that plague us and cannot be fixed simply by pretending the bootstraps myth is a reality.

Twice a week, I work with a grad student who recently moved here from Taiwan. She asked me to explain why everyone was out in the streets making noise on election night. When I told her what this election means to a lot of people, she no longer seemed upset by the noise that had kept her from falling asleep. She told me that she and so many others in Taiwan know what it is like to feel like there isn't much hope, that things won't change fast enough, that they are not represented by their government. She told me the United States is not alone in this problem, and that she hopes things will be better for the US. I hope so too.

Fly like paper

2008-11-01T22:26:00.000-07:00

I'm addicted to the Wire. I don't want another week to end or start. I want an eternal comma. There's a book I want to read. It is time warpy and features lizards and possibly koala attactivity the likes of which this world has never seen before. I didn't get nearly enough done last weekend. Caffeinated bacon. There is never enough time. I am thoroughly convinced of the total insufficiency of language. Happy Nanowrimo, dearies. Because there's a haunted car in everyone. I really like Shorpy. The line "OLD PICTURES, BETTER THAN NEW" makes me nervous though. I wonder if Ezra Pound would be proud, appalled, or just a little scared. Something else entirely? In the fall, I bake pumpkin bread and watch football. It is the thing to do. My yellow legal pad and my shiny silver zebra pen tell me everything will be all right.

The Day-After-Halloween Question of the Day: Can you identify which is Anne Rice and which is Willy Wonka? It's tricky, I know. Just do your best. It's all any of us can do.

Things to do:
*Write Personal Statement
*Write short story
*Write about WCID
*Figure out paper topic for Cather/Gilman
*Start Metaphysical and Cavalier poets essay
* Pretend that making a list will help get things done

And many more

2008-10-25T22:49:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday, Matt! :)

2008-10-24T21:18:00.000-07:00

"The sky hides the night behind it, and shelters the people beneath from the horror that lies above." -Paul Bowles

Damn good coffee...and hot!

2008-10-19T20:00:00.000-07:00

I was sitting at the kitchen table attempting to do my Ciceronian Discourse assignment with fairly limited success. My yellow legal pad was covered with a variety of drawings, from das Unheimliche (a cross between a home and a toaster oven) to the bourgeois fear of a new class nestled cozily in a Heart of Anxiety. With some stretching of the imagination, they might appear Ciceronian. At least, that's what I'm telling myself. I was staring at the clock which read 9:45. It read the same thing approximately 10 minutes earlier when I looked up. The second hand was ticking on the same second over and over. It's 7:52. And as I sat with my cold nose pressed to the side of my Shakespearean insult mug filled with hot apple cider, the thought of Zombie Jesus as the uncanny doubling of Jesus Christ brought to me such a warm and fuzzy feeling of contentment, I can scarce describe it, dear reader. As if the prodigal doppelgänger had finally come home, had finally found the place where "the other" and the self meet, and, with a fearsome start, realized that they are both the same. I heard Agent Cooper in my head saying, "This must be where pies go when they die."

File under "H" for "Huh?" 5

2008-10-19T15:10:00.000-07:00

File name: question
Contents:Me: Do I italicize plays? Steve: Put it in quotes and underline it. Bold the first letter.

File name: raceya
Contents:these slow-footed apostles will never outrun me

File name: It sung
Contents: I was very fond of Ivanhoe as a child.

File name: pplstrange
Contents:I keep thinking you're going to say something about the guns of love disastrous. We're all gonna run for Watchmen and find out it really isn't the Flying Nuns who watch them.

File name: An open letter to Cthulhu
Contents:
Dear Cthulhu,

Remember when we talked about you in my uncanny novella class? Remember the creepy pictures of the water nixies? Epic, my friend, epic.

M

File name: responsibility lies
Contents: I'm counting on you all to keep me honest, and you're doing a pretty shitty job.

File name: gone
Contents: She was so desperate, she hired someone to remember who she was.

File name: doyoureallywanttoknow
Contents: In a fight, who would win: Zombie Jesus or Robert Blake?

File name: blueberry
Contents: my prophet has no idea how much i miss him

File name: food
Contents: Whenever I order pizza online, I see the "Special Directions For This Pizza" field, and I always feel like filling it in with "Cut into rainbow shape and then arrange pepperonis in the shape of a hammer and sickle. Pineapple smiley faces."

File name: lahra
Contents: Laura: or maybe it's a bit like the deity can only be photographed in certain ways?
me: yes. you see normally you just see light... like when moses's face turns all glowworm, ya know?
Laura: yes, like the burning bush
me: quite. and what was it that followed them abouts for like 40 days... was it a mini tornado or something? Hehe
Laura: pillar of fire
me: same diff

File name: no idea
Contents: It’s almost Easter and I pop a speckled malt egg into my mouth. I say, “Jesus dies today. But don’t worry; he’s coming back on Sunday.” Stever says, “The Bible would make a whole lot more sense if he just died—if it just stopped there.” Maybe I’ll watch Passion of the Christ today like I imagine churches all over the United States (sent complimentary copies, no doubt) are watching it as well. Chunks of flesh flying, blood seeping everywhere, and this for the adults and kiddies before they hunt eggs. Your Lord and Savior, El Shaddai, Emmanuel. God is very much with us. You can buy him for $19.99.

File name: oncemorewithfeeling
Contents: My father and Steve (his, not mine) sent Ella (my niece) books and Sesame Street finger puppets for her birthday. My Steve gave Ella a Thomas the Tank Engine Duplos train set. Cookie Monster staged Anna Karenina, throwing himself onto the track: "I just can't take it anymore. Cookies are a 'sometimes food.' Say goodbye to Seryozha for me! Oh, what is C for anyway?!" It was quite moving.

Story of my life

2008-10-13T22:52:00.000-07:00

It's Paddington Bear's birthday. I played Paddington Bear in a 4th grade production of "Paddington Turns Detective." I wore a trench coat and a hat that were too big. I carried a suitcase, and I solved the crime. Mr. Brown had lost his marrow. How very British of him, I know. At first, I just assumed someone removed his bone marrow without his permission--some kind of sick trafficking of human body parts. But no, it was just a vegetable. Discovering this was a weighty disappointment. It is the curse of homonyms. You get your hopes up, and then you discover that you've devoted a good deal of time to memorizing lines so that you can wear an absurdly large coat and hat while standing in front of an audience of parents, searching not for mislaid human tissue as you had hoped, but rather, for a prize-winning winter squash.

Investigating some malfeasance

2008-10-10T07:47:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week I dreamed that I was in the library and a very large man punched me in the face. Repeatedly. Until I woke up. By the time I woke up, I didn't really care he was punching me in the face. I just stood their taking it, keenly aware of the fact that it didn't hurt like it should, so I was probably sleeping. It is not the best of ways to wake up, nor the most facilitative for falling back to sleep. I would prefer dancing sugarplums. They're creepy, but at least fairly benign.

Yesterday, I dreamed that I was showering and while washing my hair, spiders began to crawl out of the walls and out of my hair. Then my hair fell out in clumps. I didn't scream. I just sighed and woke up.

There are pumpkins outside all the grocery stores. The makeup aisle endcaps have fake eyelashes and black and orange nail polish. There are more and more of those days when it could rain at any moment, and probably will. I used to play Castles: Siege & Conquest. A lot. I've been reading about Writing Center theory. I have thoughts; I just don't feel like articulating them. I have no motivation. I've never been to the circus. We all knew this paragraph was gong no where.

I seem to have overloaded myself with things to do. 4 upper division courses. 1 seminar course with activities that are not difficult, but are time consuming. 14-20 hours of work. A horrible need to get off my ass and apply for grad school. There are also a lot of WC things I just haven't accomplished. 6 hours of sleep a night if I'm lucky. On the a happier note, this week I got a scholarship, renewed my FPP, applied for graduation, and read some really good individual lines of poetry, although I didn't really enjoy the entire poems. I need to spend the weekend accomplishing things, playing catch up. Week 2 and I'm already feeling fucked. You can't win 'em all, I know, but I'm not sure if I can even win enough to save face.

With respect to Dietrich Bonhoeffer

2008-10-05T00:17:00.000-07:00

I used to have this book about Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I was in 7th grade. It was one of those ones you get at a library book sale. Old with a lot of pictures telling his story. It had a crispy static-loving dust jacket. I bought it. I read it. Well, I read it over and over. Nobody had checked it out in a long time. And it had a quote that I have never found translated quite the same anywhere on the internet. It said that no matter how mad the world may be outside, Christian or unchristian, this world, this beautiful world, is quite indestructible. That always stuck in my mind. When I was having a child. When 9/11 happened. When the economy needs to be "shored up." Ha. I always think of that quote, and I linger on it, and I wonder why, and I think it's because I don't believe it. We can destroy the world. It is destructible. It's no wonder we try so hard to protect it. I wanted Bonhoeffer's certainty. I wanted to believe that no matter what we did, no matter how fucked up things were, this beautiful world was quite indestructible. But I could never believe it. And I wanted to know what he knew that made him think so. What world was he talking about?

Grandiose Monday

2008-09-29T23:54:00.000-07:00

I like to pretend to be Iron Chef Marjimoto when I cook simple meals. I narrate it while I cook. "What's that she's adding in with the broccoli? She's using onion?! A bold move from Marjimoto. Let's find out what the challenger thinks about that!" Challenger: "Marjimotos onion skills are unparalleled, but, I still am confident I shall win." Audience: "Oh that looks like something I would like to try!" "I think it's a sweet dish of some sort..."

The bus schedules have changed. It is not good. I'll have to get up even earlier to get to class on time. I need a zap car. Or perhaps a zap scooter. Or even a zap monorail. Blaine is a pain, and that is the truth.

I suddenly don't have a lot of time to read. I knew it was coming, but that doesn't help. When you go from hours and hours on end with the option to stay up all night reading to not enough time to read or sleep, it's a not-so-pleasant transition.

Wikipedia tells me that Charlemagne's dad's name was Pepin the Short and that he "wore fancy jeweled swords to banquets or ambassadorial receptions" Charlemagne, that is. I've no idea what Pepin liked to wear. Finding out this kind of important information is one of the reasons I am pleased that Al Gore took the initiative in creating the internet. One day I too shall have my very own scissor lift. And I will be very tall. And I will quote "Ozymandias." And it will be a very good day.

Cut it out, Laura! That's the Atlantic you're messing with!

2008-09-29T23:19:00.000-07:00

Mr. J. I miss him already...

2008-09-28T14:05:00.001-07:00

Your result for The Who Would You Be in 1400 AD Test...

The Harlequin

You scored 42% Cardinal, 41% Monk, 44% Lady, and 30% Knight!

You are a mystery, a jack-of-all-trades. You have the king's ear, but also listen to murmurings of the common folk. You believe in the value of force and also literature. Truly you are the puzzlement of the age.

Take The Who Would You Be in 1400 AD Test at HelloQuizzy

Word of mouth

2008-09-28T03:21:00.000-07:00

Last night I dreamed that Steve and I went to Amy Grant's house. She was no longer married to Vince Gill, and the centerpiece of her house was a grand piano. The rest of the house had far too much picnic checked red and white cloth. She was a bit of a mess. I told her not to worry. I still liked The Collection even if I didn't believe a word of it. I hummed El Shaddai. She cried even more. Who could blame her really?

I washed all my blankets today. Clean blankets make me sleep better. I really ought to fix up the Coos Bay quilt. It is getting rather frayed in parts. I don't know much of sewing, however, and so fixing gets put off because I really have no idea what I'm doing. If only I had know-how and initiative!

I use StatCounter. It tells me who visits and sometimes why. Some of the recent whys: "Arachnogenic necrosis," "Episode 22," "golem juicy sweet," "titular line," "language is the liquid," "way out there beyond this hick town barnaby," "syringe filled with holy water," "what causeway was sonny shot on," "distance avails not." I fear many were disappointed. I've no idea what causeway Sonny was shot on, and I know nothing of arachnogenic necrosis save for whatever was on the House dvds I was watching at the time I blogged that. When I got a bacterial infection ("Have you been camping? Did you drink any bad water?" "Uhhh not that I know of. I did eat Muchas Gracias though." "Ooooh."), I watched House endlessly for two weeks while I recovered, laying on the couch. The nausea medicine made me feel like bugs were crawling over me as I fell asleep. House had a lot of necrosis at the time. If someone comes looking for information though, they've reached a whatlimes dead end.

It's 3 in the morning, and I, in an effort to regain a normal sleep schedule, shall now go to sleep. Getting up before noon is all the rage, I hear.

Ill-advised

2008-09-25T02:58:00.000-07:00

Our sleeping patterns are strange and off. We eat dinner at midnight. Worrying about the country. Of course I'm worried. Oh, benevolent Marj^god. Doesn't it make you happy knowing I'm up late thinking of you all? I worry about sentence variation in my emails, tweaking, rewording. I don't know why. I hate the word "flow," and wish people would stop using it. No idea how to phrase my personal statement. Goals? As an instructor? Well, to prepare students for academic writing, but more than that, to help them realize the ways in which writing/rhetoric/genres (ergh) are at play in their own lives and the meaningful communities of which they are a part. Not good enough, damnit, not good enough. Nothing seems to be, even if you mean it. This is no paragraph, but I'm pretending it is. Next!

I've spent the last week reading mostly. I lay on top of my Naboo Fighter Squadron comforter lost in paper cuts. Sleep, shower, read, eat occasionally, internet, read, lather, rinse, repeat. I'm trying to ignore a lot of things. Is it working? Hardly. "You're no Chamberlain, sorry." And here I was playing invisible drums like a motherfucker. He tries to use logic (have you heard of it?) to convince me J's death wasn't my fault. At all. But that doesn't work either. I think we both know better. Deep down. Technicalities are just that. I hear him in my sleep.

Today is the feast day of St. Abadir, beheaded. Abadir and Iraja, siblings, children of the sister of Basilides, the father of kings. Beheaded with 3685 others. Thankful(?) for small comforts? That wouldn't be comforting though. Given the choice, it's better to go alone than for 3685 others to go with you. The story is hardly founded, but feast day they have, and feast day their questionable story has more than earned, even as a story. I say so, if you want to ask who.

Last night I dreamed of irradiated fish. A gold necklace: on one side a book, the other an acorn. I couldn't reach doors. Perpetual basements. "I have 2 pair. Kings and 9s." "I hope there are nines on the board." "What? No. I'm playing Omaha. What the fuck are you playing?"

Let's step back in time.

Toby the Turkey Vulture

2008-09-22T00:05:00.000-07:00

Meet Toby. I was beginning to think our turkey vulture adoption was a scam, but on my birthday this past week, Toby's information finally arrived! I know we'd chosen another name; unfortunately, he already had a name, and that name was Toby (I can't help thinking of Roots when I hear that name, so I wish we could have had our name, as I have no major associations with Aramis Sophronia Kittenry, Esq.). I apologize for them only putting my name on the adoption certificate when I clearly typed in 10 names. Perhaps they found it a bit daunting? If you'd like, I can photoshop it to reflect our turkey vulture adoption solidarity. ;) Also included were a letter about our particular turkey vulture, a fact sheet on turkey vultures, and a bookmark with a stirring poem written by the rehabilitator. Hehe. Follow the links to view all of these! If you'd like originals or copies of any of these items, please let me know, and I'd be happy to send them out posthaste.

Adoption Certificate
Letter about Toby
Turkey Vulture Fact Sheet
Bookmark and poem

Embarrassing fact: I just searched my gmail, and there were 38 search results containing the words "turkey vulture."

I love my mother

2008-09-21T22:51:00.000-07:00

Me: i had to put batman in the fridge
the chocolates don't like the heat
so i have a head in my fridge
kinda creepy
Diane: Well not if you're the Adams family. Have you ever thought to take the candy out of the head?
Me: but then i wouldn't have a head in my fridge
Diane: True oh so true. I could get you another head
Me: You could, but usually one head in a fridge is enough

A little bit of everything

2008-09-21T21:44:00.001-07:00

Things people have searched for recently that led them here: "I am not less perfect than Lore," "mad libs for middle schoolers," "Timothy Crafton McMinnville," "kandinsky little joys," "meow face," "Jehova Shamma," "pronounce jehovah Rohi," "immoderate," "I always remember my dreams."

Semi-recent news

2008-09-21T20:56:00.000-07:00

My eldest sister got engaged. The day is January 31st.

My prophet defriended me on facebook and myspace. Probably considered lj, too. I know, wtf, right? I = monster.

I just went to the store to buy ingredients to deal with a severe cupcake deficiency. I am now baking cupcakes. What am I going to do with 24 cupcakes?

Whenever people disappear, my internet presence increases. I reach out, all tendrily, Cthulhuesque, for whatever humdrum things still-may-are starting to exist online. I start using applications I wouldn't normally. I add more feeds. Redesign poor bloggy which is too dark. I miss my Scully layout.

I'm a horrible conversationalist. In fact, I'm pretty bad with most human interaction. It's a fuckin' miracle I've been with the same person for 5 years and he hasn't suggested I go pretend to be Nancy Grace somewhere far far away from here.

I need to frost cupcakes, finish writing thank you cards, and find whatever part of me it is that the lack of causes all this fuzzy confusion. Kick the subconscious to the curb and swallow eternity whole.

Summer Reading List

2008-09-20T22:50:00.000-07:00

Things I have read this summer. Because it's good to keep track. This post shall be updated from time to time as books get read. I need to read more.

The Night Gardener: A Search for Home by Marjorie Sandor

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream by Hunter S. Thompson

Diary of Patrick Breen: One of the Donner Party by Patrick Breen

Naked by David Sedaris

Life Among the Savages by Shirley Jackson

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris

Batman: The Long Halloween by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale

Batman: Year One by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli

Wild Magic by Tamora Pierce

Emperor Mage by Tamora Pierce

In the Realm of the Gods by Tamora Pierce

Rex Libris: I, Librarian by James Turner

Eleanor Rigby by Douglas Coupland

Alexander's Bridge by Willa Cather

Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris

No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

Watchmen by Alan Moore (Author), Dave Gibbons (Illustrator)

Superman: Emperor Joker by Jeph Loeb (Author), Ed McGuiness (Illustrator)

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling

Black Hole by Charles Burns

Adverbs by Daniel Handler

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer x2

New Moon by Stephenie Meyer x2

Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer x2

Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer x2

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

The Great American Novel

2008-09-19T00:24:00.000-07:00

I have to go back to school in a week and a half. It's far too soon. I think that's part of the sudden need to read in the past few weeks. Soon I won't have ~~enough~~ any time for reading what I want. I started reading Moby-Dick in part because it's on the list in my head a mile long and also because I've had my boss's copy for half a year and I really ought to give it back. I have my own copy, but his has annotation. I'm ~~1/3~~ close to 1/2 of the way through and it's a surprisingly fast and humorous read so far. Who knew Melville was so funny? He's a bit much all at once though. It's those damn chapters with information that is close to useless to me that bug me. The part where the wife of the inn owner thinks Queequeg has killed himself had me laughing (well, more of a heavy snicker). I hit my head on the window behind the bed. Fortunately, we hate sunlight enough that the window is covered with a very thick dark blue blanket.

"He's killed himself," she cried. "It's unfort'nate Stiggs done over again--there goes another counterpane--God pity his poor mother!--it will be the ruin of my house. Has the poor lad a sister? Where's that girl?--there, Betty, go to Snarles the Painter, and tell him to paint me a sign, with--'no suicides permitted here, and no smoking in the parlor;'--might as well kill two birds at once. Kill? The Lord be merciful to his ghost! What's that noise there? You, young man, avast there!"

It's hilarious. There are some beautiful parts as well. And then there's the annoying information that really isn't very useful to the story itself. Do I care that you think the whale is a fish? Not really. Do I even care at all about that giant cetology chapter that got us no where? Definitely not. Do I care about the long list of people who have at one time seen a whale in one place and failed to kill it only to find it in another place later and have done with it? Barely, and only because we know Moby-Dick is coming back later and he has no qualms about fucking you up, as evidenced through Ahab's loss of leg. The dumbass did seek "with a six inch blade to reach the fathom-deep life of the whale." Six inches? Are you fucking kidding me? (Slightly related: I don't think Lily was entirely fair in Star Trek: First Contact when she called Picard Captain Ahab. Picard may be a little grouchy at the Borg [and who wouldn't be? They go around changing the temperature and don't even join in with dancing on the holodeck], but it's not like he tries to get rid of them by poking them in the eye with one of those medical tricorder hand-held sensor array thingies. And he does go to "rescue" Data. He probably forgot that Data could pull bombs out of his arm.) Do I need the chapter that defends whaling as a profession both underappreciated and decidedly misunderstood? Possibly, but probably I could have done without. If they didn't want to whale, they'd get a job on a merchant ship. Or turn to sermonizing like Father Mapple. It may not be 1851 anymore, but we still have common sense. Whalery need not be spelled out for us in such agonizing detail. Let Ishmael talk more often!

In short, I like Moby-Dick. I'm enjoying it, and yes, this surprises me. I think it would make a good coloring book. Snarles the Painter could have his own page.

Dream I had the night of my birthday

2008-09-18T23:36:00.000-07:00

It was war. I was on the side of a giddy Darth Vader who was in love with a lady safely barricaded in the house built into trees far behind our front lines. He positively glowed with happiness and skipped around the trees we were camped in. He was staring to annoy everyone with his cheery disposition and babbling about her in that deep James Earl Jones voice. Unfortunately, my friend Tawnya fell in love with Darth Vader, despite knowing of Darth's current relationship status. She painted a huge Darth Vader head on the moon to get his attention. Even more unfortunately, when the other side saw the moon, they thought that Darth Vader was taunting them. They attacked. They reached the house before he could fight his way to it. Enraged, Darth switched sides on us because he was so angry with Tawnya for provoking the enemy. This really pissed me off. I mean, how often do you get a Sith on your side? I let him know I was unhappy with his sudden change of heart, and he stomped off into the forest. "Fine," I yelled at him, "Go sulk then." While the battle carried on, a dog attacked me. I tried to reason with the damn thing, but he would hear none of it. He was a dog after all. I stabbed it to death with a broadsword feeling pretty angry that I would have to kill anything at all let alone a poor dog that was just in the wrong place at the wrong time attacking the wrong girl. I woke up feeling miserable about having killed the dog. Melatonin always makes my dreams weird.

Please click to increase the population of Hipponia

2008-09-17T11:13:00.001-07:00

http://hipponia.myminicity.com/

Everyday is like Sunday

2008-09-14T19:13:00.001-07:00

People like me need teakettles. There's no denying that.

I have recently returned from 5 days down in California. You wouldn't think it to look at it, but there are no turkey vultures there. At first, you hardly notice, imagining them to be hovering just behind the giant billboards and advertisements for True Blood, Californication, 90210, and Pushing Daisies. It's fairly smoggy down there, and as we all know, turkey vultures like fresh, clear air for optimal death-thing discovery and munchies.

It was very nice to visit with family. We went to the Hollywood Bowl and saw the Los Angeles Philharmonic perform Tchaikovsky. While the fireworks were very good and Eugene Ugorski was quite impressive, my favorite piece was the symphonic poem, Francesca da Rimini. I personally do not like that Dante condemned her to that storm, forever out of reach of Paolo. I don't buy the Lancelot/Guinevere tale as grounds for seduction. Anyway, Francesca da Rimini was lovely, and the end was ever so stabbity stabbity and disturbing.

On Sunday, we went to the Santa Monica pier with Steve's family. We rode the ferris wheel. The view of the ocean and the pier was great from on high, my natural elevation in godship.

I read three whole books down there, so LA did me a lot of good. Relaxing too. Since returning, I've read four more books. I'm book hungry lately.

:(

2008-09-13T22:54:00.000-07:00

David Foster Wallace is dead.
So sad.

Wake up, grab a brush, and put on a little makeup

2008-08-27T11:40:00.000-07:00

Last night I dreamed that I visited my old middle school. It had changed quite a bit. The walls were all frosted glass. There were vending machines in the lobbey which, in addition to selling cold, plastic-wrapped lunch to students, also sold them scratch-its. In front of the line of vending machines was a jewelry and candy counter run by Robert Downey, Jr. who tried to convince me that a chiclet was a semi-precious stone. He was unsuccessful. The hallways were the same, and I wandered to the end of the 6th grade hall to my old Russian classroom. I waited until the class was over and said to my old teacher in Russian, "Hello. You're still here." He called me the diminutive form of an evil-doing girl in Russian and said, "You can't do this forever, you know." I told him that I knew. We said до свидания and left. There was a building next to the middle school. I was told by a student that it had a high-tech security system. When I went to the door, however, I found that the security system consisted solely of Kenneth from 30 Rock who was handing out silver tokens with flying pigs on them.

Blah

2008-08-26T01:43:00.000-07:00

I was going to watch two episodes of Mad Men, read the rest of Watchmen, do laundry, and enjoy a pseudo-productive evening. Instead, I spent my time talking to a friend who just informed me he's joined the Marines and is shipping out next month. Combine an enormous, angry, worried sigh with a WTF and you're almost there. Almost. I also spent two hours responding to an OWL that was 21 single-spaced pages long. My response was 8 pages, for which I am thoroughly ashamed. My powerz of concision are at an all-time low, and I feel as though I've wasted an evening despite possibly having helped someone a tiny bit. I did do laundry. That's something.

The moths are beating against the windows.
Always that pane right by the light.
Silly night Sisyphi (plural of Sisyphus?)
They're never getting in.
You're never getting in.
I'm just saying.
I ate dinner at 1 am.
Tomato garden soup. Biscuit. Water.
That's so not interesting.
None of this is.

Adonai is plural.
Always plural when referring to God (thefathersonholyghostums).
The singular is adon. A lord, not the Lord.
My parents did this weird program at church once.
I can't remember what it was called.
Maybe it wasn't that weird.
Time consuming though.
It had a big binder filled with lessons.
Why can't I remember the name?
It was one word, I think.
No...it was an acronym.
INSTE! Institute of Theology by Extension.
Blogging through memory
Try it sometime.
Remember the forgotten.
In one lesson, they had to learn the names of God.
I can't imagine why.
Maybe if you can't get through on one line, try another?
I quizzed my mother.
INSTE had tests, you see.
Sometimes the names still pop into my head
Like little note cards
3x5 Elohim
Jehovah Tsidkenu - The Lord our Righteousness
Jehovah Jireh - The Lord will Provide
Jehovah M'Kaddesh - The Lord will Sanctify
Jehovah Rohi - The Lord our Shepherd
Not to be confused with
Jehovah Rophe - The Lord will Heal
Jehovah Shamma - The Lord is There
Jehovah Shalom - The Lord Our Peace
El-Olam - The Everlasting God
El-Elyon - The Lord Most High
El-Shaddai - God Almighty

God fucking almighty...
All these pretty ways to keep a sister down.

So full of useless information.

"I can't remember how this got started,
but I can tell you exactly how it will end."

Cut a girl some slack. A. Not the.

Oh the trickery!

2008-08-23T17:09:00.001-07:00

From Wikipedia: The beer is primarily known today as the choice beverage of the counter-culture. In 2002, after years of decline, sales of PBR skyrocketed in areas like Portland, Oregon, much to the confusion of company heads. As it turned out, its low price and gritty, urban image appealed to the city's thriving indie and hipster scenes, resuscitating the brand and lending it a great deal of trendy cachet. Despite their website featuring art competitions and photos of young people dressed in alternative fashions, Pabst has chosen not to fully embrace the counter-cultural label or appeal to it arguably because the very same "authenticity" that made it popular would be challenged by over-marketing. Instead, the company has opted for subtlety, finding clever ways to target its growing niche through the surreptitious sponsorship of indie music concerts, local businesses, dive bars, and radio programming such as NPR's All Things Considered. These techniques have proven effective and have been rewarded with remarkable growth in sales- the production of PBR has more than doubled since its revival in the early 2000's. Pabst's success is seen by some analysts as a model for advertising to a new generation of media-savvy, anti-consumerist youth culture.

And many more

2008-08-19T10:37:00.001-07:00

Happy Birthday to Former President Bill Clinton! I do so miss seeing him in my bathroom every morning. It was a good way to start the day.

Whenever is here and now

2008-08-18T23:26:00.000-07:00

Ender in Exile in November. This makes me happy. Something to look forward to. With the Ender books, he manages not to retell the book of Mormon. Okay. It was only the Homecoming series that got out of control. But it sticks in your mind.

I once played the Angel Moroni in a movie that Kari, Autumn, and I made. I gave Joseph Smith golden spectacles and informed him that disco never died. A disservice on both accounts. I wrote the script. Autumn couldn't pronounce "excommunicated." I crossed it out and told her to say "kicked out."

Also to look forward to in November: And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks by William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac.

For Halloween, I want to be Ellen Page's one expression.

I rarely look in my spam, but for some reason OWLZ were directed there today. I looked, and there is all manner of spam. One is from "Herr" with the subject line "How to make her your slave." No thank you, Herr. "Saini" has sent an email called "Monkey shoots trainer with tranquilizer." "Zul" wants me to know that "China has more internet users than US." Perhaps Zul does not know that China has a billion people while the US has a little over 300 million. Gmail is still not alerting me about OWLZ. I looked and found two just waiting there, unassigned.

I'm tired and think I'll go read.

Some things that shouldn't hurt do.

Frodo Lives!

2008-08-14T21:17:00.001-07:00

Done with summer school.
We have to save Dent.
I have to save Dent.

Miss Marjie's Theological Question of the Day

2008-08-11T18:47:00.000-07:00

Could God make a smore so big that he couldn't melt the marshmallow and chocolate by the fires of hell?

If God wishes to comment, he is welcome to do so. Of course, he'll have to register with google first. No anonymous commenting, Big Guy!

The head bone's connected to the foot bone

2008-08-10T03:00:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I wish my entire body were made of punctuation.

I hate Adobe Acrobat, but Marj^god do I enjoy reading scientific articles. Those reaction articles--wonderful things. It's just not the same in the liberal arts.

My favorite picture from my trip to the aquarium is of the Body Fluid Clean-Up Kit on the big yellow school bus. "Like I really want to stick my hands in a pool of blood..."

I wouldn't advertise the fact that you listen to Bright Eyes if I were you.

I've spent the day (for it is currency) reading articles on HIV prevention and prevalence in prisons. In order for harm-reduction to occur, we would need to acknowledge that harm, which includes some prohibited behaviors, occurs. We would also have to believe that even though people in prisons have their liberty taken away, they still retain rights to safety and health. We would have to believe that the lives of our fellow human beings are as important as our own and warrant consideration when creating public policy. The United States stopped listening to international law a long time ago though, and humility isn't its strong suit. Clubs is. The world is ridiculous and filled with what seems like unnecessary fear.

If I were a polar bear, you would want to fight me. We would meet at the baseball diamond after school. I would take you down.

Angry tact doesn't count for much.

In my dreams, I'm chased a lot. Sometimes there are obstacles and nimble movements--systems of pulleys, ladders, oatmeal factories, giant metronomes... Sometimes people want to kill me. I get tired of it about half the time and turn around and tell them to just get it over with. Sometimes I get choices. I make rational decisions. There is stoic nodding. Daisy Miller adjusts a bow.

Liquid eyeliner is close to impossible.

Imaginary friends with imaginary forks in imaginary toasters.