the voices dying with a dying fall

Song of the Hour: "American English" Idlewild

           So,
circumstances have contrived to leave me at my favorite bar of all time, masterfully
named “WB Yeats” in Chapel Hill, with a few spare moments alone to contemplate
what I’m sure you all already realize, is my 29^th birthday.

I told my “Literature
in the Media Age” group how old I was today, and they just sort of stared
disbelieving. From that, and other similar experiences being carded, I suspect that
I really don’t look my age… yet. I have laugh lines curling up around my eyes
and the corners of my mouth, but they’re subtle. I can still pass for undergrad-age,
which keeps things easier and teenagers from asking me to buy them beer. Which
is good.

Part of me
wants to take inventory, see where I am. The rest of me is too fucking tired,
and it feels like intellectual masturbation anyway. So I’m not gonna do that. I
do remember the video notes I left myself on my 23^rd birthday,
huddled alone  in my and andy’s Greensboro bathroom after
rolling around naked in the snow. I think I was hiding from the other drunken
party-comers as well, but it’s mostly all a “oh-my-god-are-they-all-still-naked”
blur. Six years ago. Christ. Joss was only two. Was he ever really 2? Anyway.

I think
Joss more than anything else makes me feel my age. No, not like that sounds.
Like realizing I’m playing chess with him, and how surreal that is. [He mostly
understands how to play chess, thanks to Brian, not I]. He calls me like a
dozen times a day. He fixes the VCR DVD playstation nightmare by himself. I’m
old, I tell you, old. The more capable he grows, the older I feel. I guess I
associate youth with confusion; and having a newborn and not having a clue what
to do with him was definitively the most confusing era of my life. I’m not
confused like that anymore, so I don’t feel young. I’m confused about other
things- about mortality and morality and meaning and  responsibility. What was it, Andy? Giri? I’m
confused about little-old-european man things. Descartes things. Kierkegaard things.
Not Trent Reznor or Kerouac things. I don’t know. I’m not sure what I’m saying
anymore.         

    My embarrassing confession of the year. When I was in my Soloman stage, roughly 6th-8th grade, every morning when I got drees for school I’d draw a teardrop in red and black ink around that bump on the inside of my wrist. (look at yours, it’s kinda shaped like a tear. tilt your wrist back, there.) Anway, and I’d write on my arm… brace yourself:
                            My life is filled with sorrow,
                                Because I comprehend
                            The vastness of man’s ignorance,
                                And my own, my friend.
Yup, that’s a Jenny Bridgers age 11 original. For years I did that, writing, drawing over my veins. Reminding myself of man’s depravity, and how every sin is a slap in god’s face and how much he must be hurting with the amount of sin man commits. 11 years old, people. I knew something back then, whew howdy.
    Not long after, came the spiritual revolution. Thanks to the open minded liberals I met in high school (Hi, and thank you). High School really became  "high" schooling  and I’m sure I don’t need to recap the self-destructive ball of erratic  "passion" that eventually ensued. And that girl burned out by 22.
    So here.  I’m the fermenting fruition dripping from the blossom of youth [talk about mellodrama :)].  I don’t hate myself, don’t entirely like myself, but have a clear idea of what I want to change and some rough idea of how to go about it. That’s not too bad for 29. I’m in a decent school, I’m learning, which is something I enjoy no matter the atmosphere; I have fantastic friends who’ve seen me through a lifetime of self-induced crisises, scattered over the globe as they may be; and a healthy angel of a 4′8" baby bit who for whatever reason still worships the ground I walk on, not to mention a pretty decent pop.  what I’m realizing in this inventory that I said I wouldn’t take, is that I need to stop  bitching and get on with things. I’ve got it pretty damn good; let’s be honest, we all do.
     My only wish, (ok, besides winning some lottery and losing about 50 pounds), is that this time next year I have a clearer idea of where I’m headed. I’m waiting out a few classes to see what I’m really good at, what I can get paid to do that I enjoy. I dream of a MFA writing, but heavily suspect a masters/phd in clinical psychology in my future. Either way, I have nothing to complain about.

Battery dying. Thanks for the b-day mails. To warn you, I probably won’t answer my phone tonight, so leave me funny messages. Sadly, I have homework to do.

Love you guys. Thanks for sharing this intellectually mastabatory moment with me. I feel much closer to you now…
later,
love.

Song of the Moment: "shanty for the arethusa"  the decembrists

    I just slept for like 16 hours. It was amazing. I think back to my senior year, sleeping through class, hanging with the girls till 9 when I went to work, and then Owen picking me up and taking me to school… jesus christ. was that even me? did I dream all that? Really, I think I remember only one actual day/night of working that semester and I’ve applied that one day to the rest of high school. I have no real memory of like months of my life. Does anyone remember how that actually went? sara? am I making that up? I can’t imagine doing that now.
    Just pulled my first all-nighter of the semester; which is sick because it’s been like 2 weeks and I am that behind already.  I finished my paper on european settler attitudes towards Indians in Canada during the 18th century. It turned out pretty well, I think. My proffessor in that class is the type of man you never, ever want to disappoint.  seventy-something british genius that will only address you by your last name… you know the sort. Kind of want to marry him, but whatever.
    And of course, the Playlist assignment. "The Hanged Man".  I’m horribly disappointed in myself because I know how much better you guys would have done with it than I actually did. It was fun, don’t get me wrong, but I’m so indecisive I muddled everything up. Again, thank you for your help. I learned much, even if I didn’t prove it with my assignment.  You’re not allowed to see it, I’m so embarrassed by my failure [even though one slimy bastard already looked it up. 'tard. ]  But it is done, and about half my links actually work… so i guess that’s good.
    I am so unmotivated this year. At UNCG, I ripped through everything with an eager attitude, for the joy of learning. At UNC Ch-ill, everything’s a chore.  I have this sense of futlity, and an impulse to just consign myself to the hell of mediocrity and just be done with it. Drop out, or worse, build a "C" average for the rest of my academic career. I’m sick of the competetive atmosphere. These bastards suck the fun out of everything.   Anyway.
    I should be catching up to avoid future all-nighters, not whining to the loves. Feminist Geography calls. (who makes this shit up, anyway?) Again, thanks for the help.

love.

    So, this has very little to do with me, and more to do with you. And your knowledge. And your memory, because mine sucks. You’re all a bunch of music afficianados, and I need help.
    My forst major project is due next week, in my "Literature in the Media Age" class, which is as bizarre and and elusive as it sounds. 20% or so of my overall grade depends on the following project:
Create a playlist that builds a narrative, or some kind of continuity of theme or idea that could be interpreted as a form of poem, or literature. The guidelines are, 8-12 songs, annotated and explained, set up as a webpage complete with i-tunes links, etc.
    The technical aspect of this assignment is its own nightmare for the electronically challenged me, but I’m not worried about that yet. I realize of course that this is an awesome assignment, and if you’re at all like me, your mind is contemplting possibilities already.
    I’ve finalized my list to themes, rather than a soundtrack-type narrative. A story line of course would be the most interesting, but I know what a perfectionist i am, and that I’ll spend for-fucking-ever on it, so I’m trying not to be too enticed by the idea. I’ve narrowed my scope to one of three categories: Different takes on Jesus; Grief, as in widowing/widowering; or the romanticization of insanity in love.
    For example on the last: James’ "Laid", Crows "Anna Begins",  Cohen’s "Suzanne",  Black Crows "She talks to Angels", etc.  I kind of want to keep it that specific, narrators  w/crazy chicks, but it’s flexible. I could alternate with crazy narrators, Sting "Mad About You",  or something with a more specific disorder like "Me and Mia"… I don’t know. Different takes on grief is also enticing. ( know melancholy and morose… you can take the girl out of the goth, but…) Merchant’s "My Beloved Wife", "End Game" by Anthony Stuart Head, "Hold On" by McLachlan, or maybe branch out to prayers for the dead in general, like "Calling All Angels"- the Until the End of the World soundtrack, not the poppy one.
    Anyway, you get the idea. It’s due the beginning of next week, so if you think of anything , please let me know ASAP. The 3,300 mp3’s on my laptop should be helpful, but it’s almost too overwhelming- I get distracted by other themes and ideas everytime I make a list. It really is a fun project, except for the webpage part. Clock ticking. I know you guys know more music already than I ever will. I don’t really need to know the song, just find the lyrics, and maybe some idea of the musical tone.

    And ms. suzanne. I would love to regale you with exciting clown stories… but most are either boring or sad. Me and Andy mainly painted faces at PetSmart openings, which involved me renaming every single animal that came in the door, and trying not eat them, (or smash them as Sara would do ) for being so goddamn adorable. Although there was afterwards, when Andy and I went to eat, and we were still in costume, and over our Chinese buffet food, andy and started talking about some relatively deep relationship stuff, and every three minutes I would look at him, and imagine how absurdly surreal it was to see from the outside. Two twenty-somethings with painted red noses, me with rainbow-colored fake eyelashes, he with whited-out hair, motley, both I think with red cheeks- talking about giving and taking and types of intimacy, chopsticks a flying- and it really is like some kind of David Lynch dream. I think that was actually in a small town outside ashville, and I spent the day counting kid’s mullets and rattails, as well as renaming the pups.
    Actually, I voluteered my face-painting talents (or lack thereof) at a Boy’s Club party for my friend Bonnie one weekend. What was funny,  was the amazing amount of runny noses I had to paint around. christ it was gross. Whoever bought the "face paint" didn’t really know what they were doing, and got art and craft paint… which was kind of water soluble, but not really. These kids, roughly 5-13, wanted all sorts of things painted, from "crypts" and "bloods" shit, to this one girl who in a fit of religous fervor wanted me to paint "God" on her forehead. I tried to nexplain that that would imply that she was god, but she didn’t quite understand so I put "Jesus Rocks" on her cheek instead. You can imagine the chagrin of the Boy’s club organizers when she started wandering around advertizing christianity. Whatever, it was better than gang symbols (which I of course refused to do and replaced with ACC mascots).
    I think the best part of that day, was that me and Bonnie were sitting across from the "smoking kills" booth, staring at a picture of cancerous lungs for like 3 hours, meanwhile nic-ing to death. For all of the snot-nosed drama, it was a great day. I took Joss, and when we got home, I knew exaclty the nightmare all the other parents were having trying to get that damn craft-paint off their kids faces.

    That was so incredibly dull, I can’t believe how long it is. Sorry. If I remember anything better, i’ll email it to you.

love.

Song of the Hour: Tower of Song

I took Joss to see March of the Penguins last night, which turned out to be 84 minutes packed with suprises. A) Joss wasn’t bored. 2) Penguins live miserable lives. 3) I never knew how anxiety ridden I could grow when forced by penguin lovin’ to contemplate having to explain the penguins and the bees to Joss (he asked me what was going on and I shrugged. I’m a horrible prude). and D) there really is no god.

I’d slammed the breaks on my last semester downward spiral into nihilism shortly into my decline. Frankly I didn’t have time for a whole paradigm breakdown. I toyed with the idea and shadowy truth of life without inherent meaning during my commute and occasional procrastination breaks (aka coffee with Marco), but otherwise have tried to leave it to those who had actually read Nietzsche. I had other things to do.

goddamn penguins. that was some heartbreaking shit. yeah yeah, love survives. But when penguin mother #67 dropped her egg and stood around staring at the cracked frozen thing that was to be her offspring, she had no idea what to do anymore. tragic. So of course, trying to overlook the blinding sympathy pains coursing through my head,  I chalked the whole scene up to our human prediliction to personify animals with human emotions, and tried to get over it. Then the damn bird tried to steal another mother’s chick. That really happens- people, I mean. With breaking heart I explained it to an outraged then sympathetic Joss, but somewhere in the translation, in my head god really died and natural selection triumphed and everything really does suck. If you haven’t seen the film, I’m sorry. I won’t rant too much. They really do live miserable lives. Every step of the marching, breeding, hatching, feeding, leaving, these birds keep dying. Dead mothers in the water. Dead fathers starved to death waiting for the mothers. Chicks freezing in the blizzard. Coming back after a 140 mile hike on tiny feet to find your family gone…. what the fuck "intelligent design" is that?

My psycho-analytic tendencies recognize both the illogic of an imaginary god, and my ulterior motive of being too damn sensitive and just not wanting to care anymore because it hurts so damn much to care. I know this may seem incredibly stupid in the context of penguin reproduction, but its also a lot more than that, and if you haven’t been along for the ride I know I sound nuts. Point is, there’s too disproportionate misery in this world for me to justify an actual purpose for it. Nothing but a genetic drive and inherent behaviors could explain such purposeful misery in the penguin life, and I suspect, our lives too.
Did you know that as soon as a cuckoo egg hatches, the first thing it does, eyes still shut, is nose the other eggs/hatchlings out of the nest? First thing. What does that say?

Enough doom and gloom for now. Next time, I aim for clowns. I’m not fishing for god/athiest arguments, sorry if I offend. This is just what I’ve found to be an inevitable conclusion. Not only is there no god, everything else that an athiest defines as morality or ethics in lieu of a creator, I also find to be a lie. Integrity, community, sacrifice, love- all exist to enforce the survival of our species but holds no intrinsic truth. Sure, we feel it. Chemicals in synapsis released by electric currents. Chemicals like penguin chemicals, nothing more.

On the other hand, it’s a really good movie and you should see it. If an 8 year old that tends to only like movies with dinosaurs or lightsabers  likes it, you probably will too.

Meanwhile, I’ll search for a happier note…

"love."   

Some part of me realizes that I haven’t the time to maintain a blog. Ms. Hooker’s dedication is daunting, and I know she has about as much time as I do; however I haven’t the slightest as to what the rest of you are really doing anymore, and with that in mind I would like to not be hypocritical. I love keeping up with Suzanne although I haven’t seen her, or really spoken to her, in years.  It’s nice. I like feeling that our years together weren’t for naught. So here I try.

I’m also trying to write on a more frequent basis. Yesterday I started a journal/incredibly-long-letter for Joss, that I hope to give him when he’s 18 or so. I’m still relatively young, and if I show the same patterns of crotchety aging that the rest of the world seems to, I’d like to have some record that I wasn’t always an uptight old biddy. 

It’s bizarre, writing to a full grown Joss. He had been running around in his underwear playing playstation when I opened the journal and picked up the pen. Will he really grow up? What will he be like? Will therapy really be able to fix all the mistakes I must be making? Inconceivable.

I wish I had something like that from my mom, some sign that she wasn’t always jaded and crazy.  So I start now, when he’s 8, and see how many books I can fill about his growing up process, and the answers I would have liked to give to his innocent questions, had he been a little older. Besides. I could die a thousand ways before he grows up , and he’d just have you bastards to ask about me.

argh. the rambling has begun.  I’m gonna try to keep this up… well, if anyone reads it. I guess I should be doing this for me and not you, but I’m not. I want to keep up. And I think Suzy has set a fantastic example- so I’m following it.

School starts back for me next week. If the UNC ram’s horns dig me another academic grave this semester, I probably won’t make much time to write. But I lightened my course load, so maybe it won’t be so bad.
"The Office" calls.
love.