the voices dying with a dying fall

    Song of the Hour: Waiting by The Devlins

I feel like I’m mumbling into the void here.

I hung out with Amanda Becom last night for the first time in years. As per my usual anxiety psychosis, I was a little nervous at first. But Brian, Anne and I were playing pool when she showed up (late, as per )  and she jumped right in and it was pretty cool. She’s still a music dictionary, but I’ve always kind of admired that about her- heaven knows I’d never have the patience for such a pursuit. It’s interesting, no matter the number or depth of the fights we’ve had over the last forever, I’ll always remember her as the one who got me through my lonely ass pregnancy. She didn’t do it alone, obviously, but I think some of the hardest parts were spent at her house watching ER, passing another hot southern summer in a daze of planless ambiguity.  I remember Lamaz classes with Andy and Sara- happier times;  but amanda’s always in my head during the worst parts. I don’t know. There’s a quiet gratitude there I’ll never be able to express. Was I ever really 19? Crazy.

We were talking about Joss’ father last night, and she joined the ranks of those who want me to file for child support. I’ve been meaning to for like 8 years or so, but it’s one of those things I’ve never really gotten around to doing. I did some paperwork once, but it involved going to some kind of court session and that part just didn’t work out. I can’t navigate downtown, frankly. You know, the more I write, the more paltry my excuses sound. Well, maybe less paltry and more poultry. Anyway. Enough of that. Really. I’ll get around to it. Eventually.

Thanks for the college advice, guys. I’m gonna just keep on chugging along and hope inspiration hits. It’s not fun right now, school. So much work, and so much pressure, I feel like i’m in a pit of neverending pointless paperwork. You know. I don’t have to explain it. but thanks. Six more weeks, then rest. Precious, sacred rest.
Thinking back on the sweatshop video we watched, I’m going to stop complaining now.

I’m sitting outside on campus, and the bell tower keeps ringing and ringing. Every time it rings I know some amount of time has passed and I’ve accomplished nothing. That’s a lot of nothing, the way it’s ringing. Enough.
See ya in print,
tonka j

Song of the Hour: "Simple Man" by Lynard Skynard (I don’t care, I love this song)

Wow. That break is so over, it seems like a lifetime ago. It’s freezing, wet, dreary, and it’s raining assignments.  Big assignments. I’m not particulalry in the mood for any of these things, to be honest.  I got that cog psych midterm back- "85.75" well, at least he’s precise. For the record, I’m not happy. I can bomb everything else, but I could at least keep 3.8-4.0 in my majors. That’s not too much to ask.  And I don’t know if I can bring that back up.

Speaking of majors, my advisor laid out some options this morning. One of which is to drop a major and actually get out of here next may. Another is to trail along an extra semester or two… which would also give me an opportunity to steel myself away on Dr. Armitage’s summer shakespeare class in london and oxford (where we will obviously fall in love and wed at Stratford upon Avon. obviously.) I dunno what to do, frankly. An extra semester will postpone grad school… or maybe give me time to figure out how to get into one. Don’t know about that either.

It seems I’m rather directionless. I think there’s a reason for that. Honest to god, I can’t even  imagine getting a job in either of my pursuiant fields. What the hell am I gonna write? What major psychological ground am I going to unearth? I swear, school just feels like an exercise to postpone my applying for full time at uhaul.  Just a reason to stay part time. how sad is that?

many of you have graduated… give it to me straight. am I screwed? should I bother with grad school? Uhaul has excellent benefits. I’m learning my way around a truck. Really, are there other jobs out there? what are they? what do I have to do to get one? I’ll tell you, I can’t teach. Well, I may be able to teach middle school or something, but that’s about it. I am so lost. I can’t even think of jobs avaiable to undergrad degrees only. what’s wrong with me? am I jaded or realistic? you people out there in the real world, tell me something. be honest. Pushing 30 here.

Anyway, crisis of the future aside, putting the shoulder back to the wheel. Hoping to hang out with Suzy tomorrow, that’ll be a nice break from wracking my brain for new ways to procrastinate. That gets draining, you know? And of course, a new episode of Lost.  Anne likes to point out exactly how it is nothing changes every episode, but I think between last week and this week, it could happen. something could change. we’ll see…

Ok, this is so dull it’s putting me to sleep. I would like to ask, again, for more reader board suggestions for uhaul. I didn;t get any new pictures this week, because I had no suggestions that I could remember (sorry bonnie, I couldn’t remember anything we wrote) and was too tired/lazy to come up with my own. Come on, my creative little think tank, what would you like to see in print?

that’s all.
boring as ever,
me

       Song of the Hour: Naomi by Neutral Milk Hotel

    It’s a fanfuckingtabulous 74 degrees, the sky is clear, a light breeze whispers, and I am on Spring Break.  I feel like I’ve been carrying rocks in my shoulders for months and I just got to put them down. Frankly, I don’t know what to do with myself. Sure, there’s a bunch of break-homework; but well it’s friday, and I’m just not feelin’ it. I’ve been debating for 20 minutes exactly which of the 17 plans I want to do when I pick up Joss. Park? Ice cream? Shopping?  Chicken Little? An arcade? Toys’r'us closing sale? Such a luxury, to have this as my debate.  Ah, today is good.
     Finished all my midterms yesterday. I don’t think I did very well on my Cognitive Psych test,  something about Hebbian and Delta rules, something about probability and game theory. Couldn’t really tell you. My Canadian lit test, with my fiancee Dr. Armitage, was atrocious. He told us to study all the poets we’ve read, their styles. Then for our midterm he gave us a pair of poems we’ve never seen and told us to contrast and compare them, and figure out who the authors were. I don’t know if that sounds hard to you guys,  but really, early 20th century nature sonnets kind of blur together if you ask me… wait, I remember the titles….
thank you google, Roberts and Lampman.  I actually got that part right! Yay! I think another stone just fell off my shoulders, must of missed that one-slipped behind the blade or something. Anyway, my Feminist Geography midterm came back an "A", which is amazing especially considering that I still don’t know what that class is about exactly. Whatever, an A’s an A.
    By the way, if anyone has any bright ideas about a wasteland or hollow men collage, please share. I’m a little overwhelmed by the breadth of the wasteland, so might do the hollow men instead. Either way, I’m indecisive about it. Help me.  My roughdraft of Prufrock is posted here, if you’re curious. It needs work.
    Enough of computerness. I’m going to go enjoy the day with my baby bit.
    I put up a couple more pictures in my friendster album- a couple from visiting Suzy , and a couple from work. they’re worth checking out. And if you have any more uhaul reader board suggestions, I’d be happy to give it a shot. Marco’s were great. Try to keep them short, they do face oncoming traffic and I have to take the pictures pretty quickly. Check out the ones on the album, and give me suggestions. (I’m so gonna get fired. :)  )
have you seen this fucked up lobster found last year? It has blond hair, and it’s blind. Creepy.

Otherwise, hope your friday is as beautiful and wonderful as mine.

till then,
love.

ps- no one has shared my love for delilah. what’s wrong with you people!

                       Song of the Hour: Star Wars Cantina by Richard Cheese

   It’s noon on a wednesday, and I’m listening to weird songs sang lounge singer style, and writing to You People. Obviously, I’m lacking in motivation here. I can’t get my computer hooked up to the UNC server to deliver my finally finished podcast version of my Hanged Man playlist project, so obviously, I need to be tending to the blog. What cognitive science mideterm? I haven’t the slightest what you mean.
  It’s a blah day. My little angel got suspended from school yesterday for getting into a fight while the teacher was out of the room. I swear, getting the truth out of kids is an exercise in futility. From what I gather, some tension built up over something or other during P.E., and when they got back to the classroom, the teacher stepped out and this kid started punching Joss so of course he started punching back and when his teacher came back they were rolling around on the floor. Obviously, Joss must have been doing something to piss this other kid off, but he swears he wasn’t and he seems sincere. The other kid got suspended 3 days, and Joss 1. Honestly, I can’t fucking tell. I’ve tried to make it clear to Joss that no crime is greater than lying, especially about other things that get him in trouble. I’ve chosen to believe him this time. Kids always seem to be looking for a fight with him, probably because he can  be a total know-it-all somtimes, but for the most part he’s really sweet and I can’t understand why he gets picked on so much. I’m not one of those aggravating mothers who thinks their kid never does anything wrong- I tend to blame Joss for anything that happens within a 3 mile radius of him. But I really don’t understand why  he gets in so much trouble with other kids… anyway. He’s home for the day.
    Otherwise I’ve got so much to do I can’t decide where to start, so it seems I’m just not starting. My Media Literature class, the one that assigned the playlist you guys helped with, gave us our next project yesterday. Collages. Can you believe it? 3 collages- one of a character in literature, one of a work of literature (same as the character or not), and one of "ourselves". Doesn’t that rock? I think I’m going with an Eliot theme- Prufrock for the character, the Wasteland for the work, and I haven’t a clue how to use images for "me", but I suspect it will heavily resemble Prufrock. Me and J. Alfred go way back, I think we have a lot in common. Mermaids ignoring us and all that. Anyway, if you have any bright ideas for collage stuff, or even better, pictures you’ve taken that you think would work in any of them, send them on. I’m pretty good with the digital editing thing (thank you joanna, wherever you are) but again we have to deal with copyright issues, so I won’t be able to use half the images I’d like to due to ownership issues. I can’t just pull them off the web, you know? I’m going to need some good desert-scapes, hint hint. You know who you are.
     Oh my god, what am I doing? I’m remembering what a midterm is. No good, that remembering. It’s too beautiful a day to be stuck inside reading. It’s like 72 degrees right now. Maybe I’ll go read on the roof or something. That sounds promising.

   Wow. I can’t believe how long I can write about nothing. Can I procrastinate or what? Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I’ve already downloaded and watched every single episode of the office in existence, so I can’t resort to those little 20 minute diversions anymore. I need to find something else. Ideas? no, don’t tell me. I should figure out how to work… again. I used to know. I used to care. The way things are going, I’ll be lucky to get a 3.0 this semester. Ugh, muse of motivation, where art thou?

love.