Rant and Ramble

really, most of the best things in life can be boiled down to laughter. especially when that laughter occurs while laying in the grass under a tree with someone you love.

final day of my apocalyptic lit class. we watched deterrence, which was, of course, horribly depressing. we talked about our readings and discussed our impressions of the class as a whole. he asked us what we thought would be the fate of mankind - will we learn from our mistakes? will we destroy ourselves? will we end in nuclear war or far-off utopia?

the professor is a screenwriter by trade and a cynic by persona. he's bitterly sarcastic and occasionally downright mean. but at the end of class, he told us that we were the hope of the world, asked us to keep what we'd seen in mind and do what we can to prevent it from happening.

i knew he was a squishy liberal at heart.

we made brownies.
these were, alas, not an impromptu batch of brownies. they were brownies-out-of-a-box. organic brownies out of a box, no less.

we made pasta beforehand, which was impromptu, and turned out fabulously. we waited for the brownies to cook. lacking any toothpicks or a clock, we guessed they were done when our fingers no longer were covered in brownie goo upon poking. we pulled them out of the oven and put them on the table. with much excitement, we pried one free.

"hmm... doughy and tasteless. well then."

however, i dutifully cut them up and wrapped them in plastic. it turns out that brownies improve with boredom. i've eaten four in the past half-hour.

but mommy, i don't want to write about the cosmological principle!

i had forgotton that also, i am inspired. we are all tired of humanity, i think. we all want somewhere dark and silent.

this summer i will be working for an organization called campaign to save the environment. i waited with another college-aged girl while every few minutes the phone rang. our interviewer would excuse herself with an apologetic smile, answer the phone, and set up an interview time for the person on the other end.

we are preparing to change the world. this generation knows too much; we've seen too much destruction and too much idiocy. the threads are connecting, and i think the frantic pedaling of the corporations will soon prove futile. some things will be forced: our petroleum supply will be exhausted in a half-century or so, water in the middle east will become scarce enough to warrant nuclear war. there will be changes made by gunpoint, by the point of a knife or the point of starvation.

but i think we will not destroy ourselves. i think we will reclaim what is ours - a world that does not cannibalize itself, a life that makes sense. i think we will find community and culture. i think it will take a long time, and i don't think that i will witness the revolution in full.

but perhaps my children.
and in the meantime, i can eat at the white dog, shop at used bookstores, recycle my bottles, and water my plant. and i can love with all the strength i have, because that's the only thing that's going to save us.

so there.

declaration: it is a day to wear slipper-socks.

there's been alot to write this night.
bear with me.

i'm angry; at what, i don't know.
i feel betrayed; by whom, i don't know.
i'm antsy and i want no longer to be here. i want my hair back. all of it, down to my waist. i want not to sleep alone this night. i want not to be filled with this strange heavyness that has persisted since morning. i want to be content with being alone for a day or a weekend, want to feel like i'm accomplishing something.

he said that he thrives with an overflowing plate. yes, and as do i, but i've been starving myself lately, trying to meet each anxiety with quiet time alone when what i need is something to do. this is the least busy i've been in years and i know, i know it is why i am so dissatisfied with myself. i am eagerly awaiting the summer... i imagine - fantasize - about waking early to swim before going to the SPCA before going to work.

increasingly, i want to do something with myself, with my life. i want to chain myself to redwoods or protest corporate sponsorship or eat only organic foods. i feel chained instead to the university and expectation, the idea that i must have an "education" before i can be a useful member of society.

right now, i'm torn between wanting to take a midnight train to whoknowswhere with $500 in my pocket and a backpack full of underwear and socks, and wanting to curl up in a little ball and cry myself to sleep.

the problem with weekends is that they give you too much time to think.

i'd like to discover the meaning of my life, i really would. but i can only take so many typos before deciding that i'll just figure it out on my own.

"our lives and our deaths count equally, or we must abandon one-man-one-vote, dismantle democracy, and assign six billion people an importance-of-life ranking from one to six billion - a ranking whose number decreases, like gravity, with the square of the distance between us and them."
-annie dillard, this is the life

she was there every morning.
huddled in a torn blanket, leaning against the wall of the sandbox. the junglegym towered above her in the grey light. every morning, i parked across the street from her as i went to the coffeeshop. every morning, i thought to myself that i should buy her a cup of coffee and a muffin. every morning, i envisioned the way she might look at me as i handed her this gift. every morning, i had forgotton her by the time i finished ordering my vanilla latte.

i am tired of the human race.
i have had a semester's worth of apocalyptic literature, watched five hours documenting the hatred between israelis and arabs, walked home through the city peering at shadows and clenching my fists.

i've become adept at ignoring the homeless who pluck at my pantlegs.

i am tired of the human race, of our squabbling and our ignorance. i think my yearnings for soil and rain are hopes that somewhere in the womb of nature, the violence of humanity could pass me by. i want to go home because i don't remember ever feeling so discouraged there. i am afraid that i will return to a new strip mall or another gang war.

i have lost faith in my own kindness, in my ability to create and my ability to nurture. i don't want to pass them by who hold out their hands to me, i don't want to live where there are no neighbors. i don't want to be a part of this silence that stretches across everything, the numbing of minds and souls. it terrifies me, that i might lose my faith in this world, in the enduring beauty that i have always sought.

i know the answer is here; i've seen it. just last night i was giddy in the warm glow of creativity, ideas bouncing between us. just this morning i was wrapped in tenderness and gentle joy. i know we are meant for more than cement sidewalks and mutually assured destruction. i know we are more than the sum of our fears. i just don't know how to live in the world we've created.

"pour over me like sweet drops of rain, hit me lovestruck like a hurricane." -ashley brewer

there's a soft kind of weariness that comes with crying.
i've not been crying, but i feel it anyway.

it's a strange sort of soulweight, a haze of exhaustion that reaches deeper than flesh can bear. i don't know from whence it came today, nor why i feel suddenly so heavy.
except,
i miss the earth. i miss the scent of water, i miss flowers that weren't planted and planned. i miss sleeping with wind on my face, away from the omnipresent hum of appliances, traffic lights, people. i want night to be dark again. i think, given the right circumstances, i would be fully willing to leave this city for good. the ground here is not so soft, and i'm aching for something i can dig my toes into.

flowers are pretty.

The girl who's like a bird flinging
herself
into song and then shutting up
as if she's suddenly thought twice about trusting
the air.
Think of the burden
the air has to bear, all the words broadcast
over it, all the high frequencies
required for people to say what they need
to say, all the silence
necessary for them to say it, all
that cannot be said.

-chris bursk

i've been waking often the past nights, though usually closer to morning. five o'clock on the dot, three days running, and then again at sevenish and usually once or twice before.

i'm not particularly alarmed at this; there have been long periods in my life where i never sleep a full night through, and the stress of the end of the year and the necessity of moving might well be showing itself that way. i'm certainly not feeling it otherwise, except in the vaguest sense, and with a slight film of disgust for the amount of stuff i've collected. i made it over here in two suitcases, a cardboard box and a trip to target. there's alot i'll want to throw away, i think. i don't want to have this much junk.

we were talking, mostly in theory, about the idea of building a home somewhere in the country, in the mountains. having an extensive garden and a fuel cell and needing nothing more. well, little more. books, of course. music. though i think i could live fairly happily in a shanty lined with books and cds, so long as i had something to do with myself all day.

i bet one could be a very well-employed big-animal vet in the country, were one so inclined. just look at james herriot.

the clock blinked a sadistic 3AM when i finished the paper. by the time i finished the bibliography and all my readings, it was four.

when i woke up, the clock proudly told me that my first class, for which i'd written said paper, had already begun.

when i explained to the professor that i left my paper at home and could run and get it, he told me not to bother, he'd accept it on friday anyway.

c'mon, god. can't you think of something better to do?

they were measuring my arm.
last time, they were pinching my arm with little calipers to see what my bodyfat percentage was.
i don't know why they were measuring my arm.
or why that made me pass out.
but i did.
again.

the lady there must think i'm veeeery strange.

a picture of my sister came fluttering out of a letter from my mother today; i am feeling so strongly, of late, the spiderweb threads that connect me to my family. it becomes strangely important that i remember details, call them to mind, hold them close and watch my history winding back through all the preceding generations.

and place. in my humanities class, we discussed the importance of place on mentality and writing, the idea of location and connotation influencing life. i miss the ocean, i miss the view from my bedroom window. i miss the precarious seat nestled in the oak tree. i want to return to our house pre-remodel, when it was too small for the five of us and we took turns at the sink in our only bathroom, shoving with our elbows. barrettes and scrunchies in the second drawer; mom's blowdryer in the third. my room covered in a clich� motif of stars and moons, swaths of fabric hung across the window over ugly blinds, my desk cluttered with papers and books because i did all my homework on the floor.

my journal from last june shows an entry freehanded after a breif flight to philadelphia. over several pages of consciousness-streaming, i ask myself if i will be able to take the city into myself, absorb its awkward curbs and slicing buildings.

i've found joy here, and challenge, and love. there are ways in which i don't want to go back home for the summer, parts of me that have taken root in this city and begun to grow. i call it home, but i'm yearning for the hardwood floors of the house i grew up in.

several hours ago, i attempted to snip an unruly wire with the self-same all-purpose scissors which hacked away (quite successfully) at my hair last night. as i'd already partially completed the project around the wire i was trimming, i had to carefully navigate the scissors through several other bits of intersecting wire into a very small space. when i cut the wire, i managed to have my finger right in the way.

as a result, i had two little slices of skin making a pale V between my knuckles. after momentary inspection, i determined that i wasn't bleeding and in only minor pain - project-assembly summarily continued.

only now, hours later, are little drops of blood beginning to well out of the trenches and stain my skin.

squeek.

thought so.

seems rather like typecasting, really.

in my skin i see my mother's skin. my feet have become her feet, my fingernails like her tight ovals, elbows rough and cheekbones arching beneath soft skin. i use her diminutives and her inflection. i can hear her voice echoed when i speak.

i've avoided her spiraling frenzies under stress, though i've been known to cry out of frustration and like any good mammal i lash out when cornered. i think i manage to sidestep her tendency to repeat an instruction ad nauseam, though i've never yet had to get three kids out the door before eight every morning.

i think i have some of her dignity; i hope i do. some of her inner dexterity, her ability to fill all the roles required of her without losing herself. some of her exceptional love, the gently fierce pride and tenderness.

and beneath that, i can see my grandmother's hands in mine as i type, the straight-backed integrity inside her hunched and trembling figure. i remember winter mornings with steaming mugs of hot chocolate and oversugared grapefruit, taking the crusts from my bread outside to feed to her carefully gaurded horde of birds. she leaned over my shoulder as we watched them industrious in the garden, pointing out doves and finches. even when surgery and illness rendered her housebound, she insisted on tending to her own sprawling rosebushes.

my eyes are said to be my grandfathers', the same deep greyblue passing down from each side, skipping my parents to shine from my eyes, and my brother's. my father tells me that in mind also i am like the grandfather whom i alone of my siblings remember. his books on philosophy and psychology and politics sit on my bookshelf, his scribbled notes in the margins. my father himself gave me his expressive eyebrows and an enduring interest in the intricacies of the world.

in this month i have passed a birthday and mother's day away from my family. for the first time since i left for school, i truly felt the separation.

because faith should be a verb.

every swimmer remembers their first DQ.

the 400 individual medley.
four laps of butterfly, four laps backstroke, four laps breastroke, four laps freestyle. a summer meet, huge, with maybe a dozen regional teams competing. i'm fifteen years old. this is my favorite event.

under my feet, the block is cold and rough, white plastic scraping my skin. my goggles broke in the last race, and now they're knotted awkwardly. i don't know if they'll stay on and sixteen laps blind won't be fun. on my left, girls in skintight suits are adjusting their caps with practiced ease. i'm in the rightmost lane, which means that i'm expected to be the second-slowest in the race.

the loudspeakered voice tells us to place our feet, and i reach forward to grip the edge of the block, one hand on either side of my right foot. the left is back a few inches - i never felt comfortable with both feet foward and my coach chides me for putting too much weight where it isn't needed.

my muscles are nearly twitching with anticipation. my stomach has stopped its desperate attempt to crawl out through my ribcage, and every part of me is focused on the silence that precedes what has become the most important sound in my life.

the buzzer.
pavlov would be proud; before i've consciously registered the noise, i'm hurtling through the air, arms tight in front of me and toes pointed behind. i slip into the water as seemlessly as i've ever done.

butterfly is a touchy stroke. if your rhythm is off, even a little, every movement is a struggle and every muscle regrets it. today, however, my body knows exactly what to do, and i feel powerful and fast as i cut through the water. each gasp of air feels like a victory.

backstroke is my greatest weakness. despite my best efforts, i can't help but swerve around the lane, but at least this race i manage not to slap my hand against the laneline. backstroke is a chance to breathe, but i know i'm losing ground.

breaststroke. this is my darling, my point of redemption. when my babysitter one summer taught me to swim "froggystyle," i discovered that the more relaxed i swam, it seemed, the faster i went. in our last lesson i beat her twice. sliding cleanly through yard after yard of smooth stroke, i pinpoint all the swimmers ahead of me. four, which places me fifth out of six. right where i'm supposed to be.
i am not pleased.
fortunately, my favorite stroke is infamously the bastard child of the swimming community. in these four laps i pass one of the girls in front of me, and i'm up to the bubbles trailing behind another.

the last hundred yards of freestyle are by necessity a sprint. every last particle of energy is sought for and pushed into aching arms and legs and shoulders. by the last lap i'm breathing every stroke and even with a girl two lanes over for third place. i find strength from places i didn't even know i had, push myself farther and faster than i knew i could go.

hitting the wall at the end of the final lap, i immediately turn to where the girl in the other lane has immediately turned to me. after a very brief moment, we both snap our heads around to the board, where our times will flash and tell us whose fraction of a second will betray her. i frantically scan the numbers.

second place.

somewhere in my singleminded devotion to beating girl-in-lane-three, i also beat girl-in-lane-five. the adrenaline is enough to completely counteract my exhaustion, and i let out an involuntary whoop of joy. i pull my cap off, dunk my head victoriously and pull myself out of the pool grinning wildly.
to be met immediately with a small, water-spattered piece of pink paper.

the woman timing me looks apologetic.
the judge looks utterly dispassionate.
the paper says my shoulders weren't aligned properly as i touched the wall in my second lap of butterfly.

i walk blankly back to the stands, where my jubilant mother sweeps me into her arms and congratulates me until i burst into tears.

note to self: don't read horribly depressing post-apocalyptic novel directly before going to bed alone.

right, so black holes have a thing called an event horizon, which is a sort of radius around the black hole. after you pass the event horizon, space and time flip. i'm not entirely able to verbalize why, but this means that you can't escape being sucked into the singularity, which is the point when the force of gravity becomes infinite. insofar as i understand it, basically the fact that we progress unilaterally in time becomes a progression unilaterially in space, and instead of moving physically towards the black hole, it just becomes your future.

with spinning black holes, there are two event horizons - the first flips spacetime, and the second sets it back right. at which point, you can avoid the singularity. which, with a spinning black hole, actually isn't that hard, since unless you approach it equitorially, its gravitational force is repulsive.

not to mention the two photon spheres, the ergosphere, the conversion of potential gravitational energy to kinetic energy, the eliptical singularity, and anything else i haven't discovered yet.

and i only get five minutes of presentation time.
excuse me, i have to go practice my speedtalking now.

today i went to the market with chris. including round-trip subway fare for us both, i spent twenty-five dollars and change. i bought a package of bing cherries, one of kumquats, two of exceptional cherry tomatoes, a bag of green beans, a package of pita bread and a pint or so of hummus. he laughed at me as i scurried around the stalls, squealing over the discovery of cherries and taking pictures of squash.

i somehow managed to fit it all in our little midgetfridge, along with three bottles of water, a few strawberry drinks and a large jug of cranberry juice.

later, i sat down to finish the last set of questionnaires for the nutrition study:

the eating and weight questionnaire.
the food choice questionnaire.
the food preference questionnaire.
and,
the food questionnaire.

i am to answer true or false: "quick success is most important to me during a diet."
i am to answer how often i am "dieting in a conscious effort to control weight."
i am to define my maximum weight gain in one week, and how many pounds i was over my ideal weight at my maximum weight.

they want to know if i eat when i am irritated
depressed or discouraged
angry
anxious, worried or tense
frightened
disappointed
emotionally upset
when someone lets me down
when things go wrong
when something bad is about to happen

they want to know if "before i eat a favorite food my mouth tends to flood with saliva."

over nearly fifty pages and a good three or four hundred questions, they want to know much more than i bother to think about. i've never been on a diet, i don't have an ideal weight. i've no idea how much i've gained or lost in a week, i don't know how many calories i consume, and frankly i don't much care.

i'm also not fond of the fact that they've somehow made me feel guilty for eating most of a package of cherry tomatoes and all those peanuts.

sigh. stupid society.

i was going to write about how mediterranean i feel eating tomato salad and pita bread for dinner...

and then i was going to write about how little the east coast seems to know about produce, and the fact that i've had to introduce people to artichokes, avacados and kumquats in the past few days...

but then a little brown-and-yellow-mottled spider jumped two feet from my bulletin board to my keyboard and proceeded to march about on said keyboard until i tried to squash it, at which point it lept and apparently became invisible, because i couldn't find it.

and now everything tastes kinda funny, just on principle.

it's early; saturday morning light too warm through the windows, though a breeze outside belies the heat. the woman at the coffeeshop yesterday recognized us, brought iced coffee and chai with a warm smile. she laughed deeply as she hoisted a wroughtiron chair over her head to take outside into the sunlight, brushing away our offers to help. behind her, the music was rhythm before anything else, heavy drums underneath a recording of martin luther king. the people next to us discussed yoga and psychology, and the man with the british accent gallantly took the matching table down the stairs for her.

we found an independently published 'zine on one table and i finished the crossword while he read. the chai slid smoothly down my throat, rushing to fill my thirsty skin with sweetsticky richness. this is, i'm sure of it, my favorite part of the city.

acquisition of digital camera for my birthday has me running about snapping heedlessly. most of them are deleted after a second or third veiwing; the rest lie dormant now on my computer, waiting to be touched up and sorted.

it's thrilling to be seeing the world in snapshots again, to notice the moments. photography helps to do that. little things begin to jump out, too many to fill a single frame, to fill a single eyeblink, and even the ones i don't try to capture on film seem to shine so brightly.

i feel stretched this morning (three yet? oh but how, the sun is barely squinting, the sky still grey and dewy despite the warmsoft heat) feel like i've been pulled somehow, like my spine is longer than should fit in my body and i am trailing long tendrils behind me, tired because of strange dreamings last night and wanting to stay in bed forever, pillowed on his skin because he knows me, feeling the scratch of unwashed sheets and wanting this air to congeal around me and hold me tight like fingers.

i was reading old poetry last night, falling back down the trails of years and emotions i can't recall having, wondering where those words came from and the passion behind them the fear and pain and the recoiling. i am happy here more than i think i realize, standing alone and holding hands, and i find it hard to remember how it felt to be terrified and angry the way that those poems know i was.

it makes me wonder how i could be so lucky, how i could have stumbled upon this love, this light, and somehow kept it wrapped around me us and not torn it apart from sheer confusion doubt (of myself, knowing that i might not be so much as is thought i am but this time i think my reality is enough) fear of falling, for there have been too many pedestals and too much air to shatter against, too many walls in their eyes except for now now i am on solid ground can stretch my legs and not stumble from some unseen edge and that is equal to flying, i think.

the whole is more than the sum of our parts, converging and coalescing into some greater good some straining soaring thing. each morning that i wake to the color of his eyes i am humbled.

"this is the scientific term 'spaghettification.' you will want to write this down."

i love my astrophysics class.

and, did a little link re-arranging so that my sidebar more accurately reflects the pages that i actually read regularly. don't worry if yours just disappeared, it's still bookmarked, i promise.

"yes there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run, there's still time to change the road you're on" - led zeppelin

it's strange, that all of a sudden i'm doubting.
i'd decided on graphic design as a major years ago, did an internship with an ad agency to make sure. i wanted to open my own business, designing logos or ads or magazines or complete business identities. it's something that i could see myself doing for a significant amount of time without coming to hate it - or myself.

i think maybe i'm just frustrated with my design class and the fact that i can't seem to produce a single decent piece of work. still, i don't think i want to depart completely from the idea of art... though maybe i should just make it something personal and not allow my finances to rely upon it. i just can't get away from the nagging feeling that i could be doing more, that there must be something, somewhere that i could be passionate about, some niche that only i could fill.

i don't know. i suppose the end of freshman year is when you're supposed to doubt your future; it seems as good a time as any. in a way, i'm sure it'll work out, sure that i'll find whatever it is i'm supposed to be doing, and do it.

it'd just be nice to have any idea what that "it" is.

spent some time on the phone with my mom today, talking about what i want to do with my life. she worked for a long time as a dog trainer and animal behaviorist, and i asked her if she could set me up volunteering over the summer with a place back home that trains big cats and other wild animals for movies and whatnot.

i think maybe i want to work at a zoo, or some wildlife refuge in africa.

or maybe i'll spend my time here over the summer, looking at stars.

maybe i'll be an astronomer.

maybe i'll be an astrophysicist.
maybe i'll be an astronaut.

maybe i'll join the circus.

last year, matt and i stood in the whitewashed light of 7-11, waiting for little red dots on a display to line up and prove it was midnight. when they slipped into place, i marched triumphantly to the counter to purchase the requisite collection: a playboy, a pack of lucky strikes and a scratcher. the cashier smiled and obediently asked for my ID. later that day i shoved a needle through my nose and left a little shiny ball; that weekend i jumped out of a perfectly good airplane.

this year i slept in late, worked on my design project, and spent some time at a friend's cinco de mayo party. several hours were devoted to reading.
all day people have been asking me what i did for my birthday, and i've been telling them "nothing."

i don't know if it's because i didn't have anything to do, or because i didn't have anything to prove.

happy birthday to me!

3 ways to improve a bad mood:

1. read the blue day book.
2. read henry's diary.
3. make snapdragon blossoms hold conversations with each other.

yesterday we walked on down to south street after lunch, a good 40 blocks to return movies and purchase interminable art supplies. took the El back from second street to meet the guys before we all headed to the UA17 to see the opening of spiderman. we crowded noisily into the subway, hollering across turnstiles as dollar bills were shoved back and forth until everyone was paid for and we clattered down the stairway and into the next car.

at second street we all piled out to walk the remaining ten blocks or so to the theater. there was a heated debate over which disney heroine is the sexiest. conversations about disobedient circus monkeys and hostile robot takeovers were loudly held. we trampled well-manicured lawns. we walked out in front of traffic. at some point kevin lit his hand on fire.

we got to the theater really early and had to entertain ourselves.
at some point, kevin lit his hand on fire again.

we waited in line loudly.

when they finally opened the theater, we sat three rows from the front and leaned back in our seats. twizzlers were procured and passed around. obscenely expensive soda was bought and bitched about.

after ten minutes of crappy movie trivia and poorly designed ads, gerard stood up and yelled, "excuse me!" at which point kevin yelled, "it's this girl's birthday!" and pointed at me.
i tried not to blush as the entire theater sang me happy birthday.
somebody gave me a burger king crown.
i blushed.

(this is where i don't talk about the movie itself except to say it was really fun and you should see it. with lots of people who make hilarous snide comments the whole time.)

afterwards, we walked back because nobody was willing to spring for a cab and the subways were closed for the night. someone had stolen a huge handful of straws, which were immediately converted to SpideyWeb and shot about with relative accuracy, not ceasing until long after someone had been hit in the eye.

we tramped through the deserted italian district, voices echoing. i walked in the middle of the six of them, suddenly glad that all my friends were male and that some were really tall and stronglooking.

we passed a scaffold to comments of "i could climb that," and when someone correctly predicted the existence of a cop car lurking around a corner, his SpideySense was highly praised. we discussed the likelihood that mary jane was a lesbian and the logistics of caring for a four-year-old spiderman jr.

when we got back to the dorms, the group split up and i hobbled up the walkway to a chorus of "happy birthday kat!"
i couldn't help chuckling all the way to the elevator.

friends are the best birthday presents.

the professor poses a question, met with deafening silence and rolled eyes from the two of us. a few tentative hands raise to offer wrong answers. he asks the question again, a little pleadingly.

in perfect unison and with the same dry voice we cock our heads to the same angle and reply, correctly,
"electrons."

not that we're roommates, or anything.

beltane already?

aw, and i'm not allowed any contact sports.
sigh.
well, best of luck to the rest of you.

for the record, all i want for my birthday is a letter.

just write me something. say happy birthday. or don't. just say hello.
i miss you.