old school teenage xanga entry of the day: I'm just so happy. for no reason.

2 things

1. I never quite realized this, but I love the color of donkeys. We don't appreciate donkey color enough. Not enough has been said about this. Can enough be said? Doubtful. Better not to speak of it...

2. I would take a photo of the painting I got from good will a few days ago and show it to you. It's hanging on my wall and every time I look at it it's clearly a different thing. A monkey gripping the side of his cage which is also a boat floating on the ocean. (That is just one of them.) But I am not going to because I feel like it's just too much for you to know. It's not fair. I don't have a blog of your life. I don't know what you look at, let alone what you think it is. I repeat: it's not fair.

why is my family so weird.

Every day when I take my lunch break on the fourth floor I look out this window and read this sign the art co-op made (by printing one letter per sheet of computer paper and taping it to the windows) that says "Everything will be okay."

weird things people said to me today. cool.

I went to see a nice, tall, bald guy about a computer today and as he was trying to fix the video card so that the monitor would display, we heard a little kid laugh downstairs, and then he said, "That's my daughter. She's SO. FUN. Oh man, she's just so much fun. It's crazy. She's nine now so I keep waiting for her to disrespect me but she just keeps being fun." How cute is that?

And then I got home and my new roommate said he was wondering whether or not I'm seeing someone because he didn't know if I'm cool with hanging out with black people...? Is he wondering if I'm single and racist? Or if I have a white supremacist boyfriend? Or if I'm trying to get with his friends? (I am.) Um...cool.

Wait, why do I say this word all the time? That doesn't make sense.

Verb

boughten

1. (archaic) Past participle of buy.
   

   He has boughten that brand of cereal before.

   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   I say "He bought that before," or "He's boughten that before." Ha. 
   
   
   Hey, at least I don't say "warshrag." 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

nothing's funnier than high school.

from my sister's homecoming dance this year. why are all the boys doing the '50s shuffle?

I want to go to London. I miss that place. Anyone down?

What happened when I tried to go to hulu.com to watch It's Always Sunny at this coffee shop. Treated.

what if our names lose their vowels? apocalypse?

Facebook suggests I become friends with this kid I know from home whose last name is Tower, but he has it listed on facebook as "Twr." This fascinates me. Isn't that sort of audacious? No?

And is Hanna (and Kierkegaard) right that anxiety is the dizziness of freedom? I think I become anxious when I lose consciousness of freedom. Hmm...


(I am in a capitalization phase. My roommate has chainsaws and possibly a homeless man.)

(You can trick people into thinking you're writing something interesting when you juxtapose short and unconnected thoughts left unexplained. Confident brevity is the key to trickery! In real life, too. But then annoying men in coffee shops might call you fascinating and/or mysterious and you might get bored.)

first snow.

Corning, Iowa.

My mom just texted me this, forwarded from my aunt. or uncle. or cousin. It is cool.

I'm starting to think that French films are just about beautiful people being beautiful and refusing to make meaning. in black and white. while smoking.

books to read

1. Ulysses 
2. Moby Dick
3. Stanislas Dehaene's book on reading and the brain
4. Robert Goolrick's A Reliable Wife 
5. Lorrie Moore's Gate at the Stairs
6. Jim Lynch's Border Songs

Whoa, Urbana Free Library. Whoa.

I'm actually really surprised that the librarians' teenage-imitation-speak is so accurate. They know that starting a sentence with "um" and using the word "random" are convincing ways of sounding like a teenager? Those research librarians. I've underestimated them.

T.T.D.

1. Upload new ipod songs and charge ipod.
2. Eat actual non-coffee food.
3. Learn how to make non-cloudy coffee.
4. Buy $25 Amazon espresso machine.
5. Buy typewriter.
6. Buy kayak.
7. Attach typewriter to kayak.
8. Apply to more schools.
9. Make a budget?
10. Figure out bus schedules.
11. Find a place to live.
12. Fix computer- delete pictures- update new OS.
13. Pack/unpack/remove unpacked things from car.
14. Find non-oppressive small group.
15. Watch Birth of the Nation, movies by John Ford, movies by Bergman, Chaplin, Eisenstein, Fellini.
16. Steal Biscuit from family.
17. Clean the house.
18. Do laundry.

19. Stop posting pictures of your adorable dog everywhere.
20. Care about your blog.
21. Learn about more things you don't know about at all, and that don't come easy. (Turns out you learn more this way)
22. Find out about public lectures.
23. Eat vegetables.
24. Join Cornfield Desert Hiking group.
25. Return Nabokov, start reading Ulysses.

Okay, this is the shortest and most inconsequential t.d.l. of my life. I've traded sleeping in but always being on the clock for waking up early (maybe the thing I most hate) and freedom. And stress for pressure. It's a nice change of pace.  But I still get home from work every day and wonder where my homework is. And I totally feel guilty watching a movie without simultaneously catching up on emails and skimming articles. There's no rewards system set up. I don't say "okay, you can watch this movie because afterwards you'll read/write for four more hours." I keep pushing the play button and then stepping back and thinking "whoa, should I just sit on the couch now??" I don't actually need to be on my computer! So weird.

avett bros. song of the day.

love gets lost. 

mid-90's "intellectual" Jewish romantic comedies are not. intelligent.

I'm living with this middle-aged liberal, knit-scarf owning, food co-op enthusiast until I find a place next semester. He might be upset that I just called him "middle-aged," because maybe he's 35. Well, I don't know how old he is. Anyway, he's the only person I can think of who doesn't care about anything the way Sam and I don't. He doesn't care when I pay the rent or what temperature I want to keep the house, or how long I stay, or whether or not I lock the house. He doesn't lock the house. He doesn't know where he puts anything, he writes memos to himself, and it takes him all day to pack for a trip because his mind wanders and he forgets that he still has to do laundry. In sum, he is GREAT, and we should NEVER be allowed to live together.

I am going through his VHS collection while he's traveling, and it's a bizarre world of 90's Jewish romantic comedies. They are all about so-called liberated intellectual women with hot mess-hair and blood-colored lipstick (why did they think that was a good idea?), and usually Billy Crystal makes an appearance. And they are just horrible, though fascinating. Probably the worst thing you can do to the romantic comedy is to try to pass it off as something for the intelligentsia. What is going on here? No one was funny in the 90's, either. No one was romantic, and no one was funny. The 90's weren't so long ago. How were we so wrong- about hair, about love? And why is it so obvious only ten years later?

I need fresh air. I need cable. The 90's have ended...the 90's have ended...the 90's have ended...

I am writing in my blog! are you happy:>!!>!#

I am really good at missing people for the rest of our lives. It is my #1 skill.

My #2 skill is thinking up Ray-J contestant names.

My #3 skill is wondering if terrell owens wants to marry me.

My #4 skill is roller skating.  backwards. just kidding, frontwards. backwards is hard.

this is interesting. from the most recent Christians for Biblical Equality e-letter.

Does Genesis 1-3 teach hierarchy?

The creation and fall of Adam and Eve, found in Genesis 1-3, is often used to justify hierarchy of men over women. Here Allison Young (MDiv, Princeton Theological Seminary and former intern of CBE) responds to a few of the common arguments.

Adam named Eve:
Adam calling Eve “woman” does not indicate Adam's authority over her; rather, it is an expression of the similarities that they share, as Adam exclaims “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called woman, for out of man this one was taken” (Gen. 2:23). In the Hebrew, the man is called ish and the woman ishsha, the similarity in the names being intentional. This is a word play, for just as the man (adam) was formed from the ground (adamah), so the woman (ishsha) was formed from the man (ish). These designations refer to the unity of the relationship to one another. To suggest that when Adam called Eve “woman” implies his authority over her is superimposed on the text. Scripture gives no indication that God gave Adam authority over Eve. Rather, by exclaiming “this one shall be called woman, for out of man this one was taken” Adam was expressing joy at the similarity and unity he shared with Eve, a joy he did not exhibit when encountering the animals.

Adam and Eve had different roles:
Those who claim that Adam and Eve had different roles are referring to the roles of male authority, or “leader,” and female submission, or “helper.” The Scripture contains nothing that suggests that Adam and Eve had different roles before the fall. Nowhere in the text is Adam called to be in authority over Eve or to be her leader. Genesis 1:26-30 clearly indicates that both Adam and Eve were made in God's image and both were given dominion over the earth and its creatures. Eve was made because Adam was in need of a partner to help exercise dominion over the earth (Gen. 2:18). But, the text does not suggest that Eve's identity or role was in that of a subordinate helper (see below for meaning of “helper”). The point of the narrative is not that the woman was created to be a helper, but that one male human being was insufficient, and Adam's momentarily aloneness was the only “not good” in a perfect world! The creation of Eve is to fulfill Adam's lack and need for a partner who was like him. Hierarchy in human relationships came as a result of sin (Gen. 3:16).

Eve was created to be a helper (Gen. 2:18):
The Hebrew words used here to describe woman as a helper are ‘ezer kenegdo. The word ‘ezer means “helper” and is never used in the Old Testament to refer to an inferior or to a subordinate. In fact, the word is used in reference to God as our helper (Psalm 10:14; 30:10; 54:4; 70:5; 72:12; 121:2). Clearly God is not our subordinate. ‘Ezer is a sign of strength and power. Kenegdo is a Hebrew preposition and adverb meaning “corresponding to” or “face to face,” so it is best understood as meaning that Eve was a fitting partner for Adam, for she was like him. Eve was created as an equal to Adam. She was given equal authority and dominion over the earth (Gen. 1:28).

Eve was responsible for the fall/The fall occurred because Eve attempted to usurp Adam's authority:
Both Adam and Eve knew not to eat the fruit (Gen. 2:16-17; 3:2), both disobeyed (3:6), and both were held responsible (3:15-22). Nothing in the text suggests that the fall happened because Eve attempted to take authority over Adam. Also, nothing in the text suggests that Adam had authority over Eve before the fall. The snake challenged God's authority, not the man's (Gen. 3). The narrative makes it clear that the sin was disobedience to God (Gen. 3:11).

“Your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you” (Gen. 3:16):
This verse reflects the consequences of sin due to disobedience. It is not a prescriptive statement about how man and woman ought to relate to one another, nor is it God's original intent for male and female relationships. Rather, the subordination of women is the result of sin.

I think this picture is funny. He's like, sup, girl scouts, and they're like, sup.

I like this nice young woman.

I'm officially giving up on men

in favor of this man.


"Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed."

-Jesus




for realz

best song

let me upgrade u

Something about these moves:







and these lyrics:


I can do for you what Martin did for the people
Ran by the men but the women keep the tempo
It's very seldom that you're blessed to find your equal
Still play my part and let you take the lead role
Believe me
I'll follow this could be easy
I'll be the help whenever you need me
I see you hustle wit my hustle I
Can keep you
Focused on your focus I can feed you

[bridge:]
You need a real woman in your life
That's a good look
Taking care
Home is still fly
That's a good look------------------------


Cuz if you liked it then you should have put a ring on it
If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it
Don’t be mad once you see that he want it
If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it

wo oh ooh oh oh ooh oh oh ooh oh oh oh 


Don’t treat me to the things of this world
I’m not that kind of girl
Your love is what I prefer, what I deserve
Is a man that makes me, then takes me
And delivers me to a destiny, to infinity and beyond
Pull me into your arms
Say I’m the one you WANT
If you don’t, you’ll be alone
And like a ghost I’ll be gone








doesn't quite match up.

listen to NPR's song of the day + yesterday's

today's

yesterday's

but this is interesting

Black and elitist in America, huh? Hmm.

(photo credit: this is from a long-lost cousin of mine in Tennessee)

heyyyyy, I don't care

Maybe I'm just blinded by loyalty, but I'm getting pretty annoyed at people's reactions to Obama's being selected as the Nobel Peace Prize recipient. First of all, that they're still talking about it. Secondly, that they assume that speaking and giving speeches doesn't count as "action." And mostly, that they want to dedicate facebook status updates to the news that they're against it. Both my conservative friends and my radical pacifist friends are doing this. Well...cool. With all this political self-righteousness and needless divisiveness, apathy seems more and more appealing every minute.

My mom is the harshest of critics.

Well, maybe a dying corn field in October.

Is there anything more beautiful than a dying bean field in October? I think not.

An Impromptu Analysis of the Life of Holly Regnier Using a Pseudonym, Upon Request

Scarlet bo Peep loves her cats because they are hers, and because when they were kittens, they were cute (if you like that sort of a thing), though just as frivolous as they are now, and just as willing to swat at the hair on top of your head from above the couch. She hedges. She mumbles. And Scarlet has no qualms about falling asleep while driving, while watching a movie, while walking. One would not call her a great wit, perhaps, but there is no denying that she has a great mind. That is to say: Scarlet is a little slow on the uptake, but she has an almost uncanny understanding of things like time zones. She is a fan of evading the question, but then, who isn't? She is very generous with her money, her car, her time, and her house, and this she gets from her father, a koala. Scarlet bo Peep has available several stunning senior pictures in which she is bewitchingly pictured playing a flute. Her flute. She is as musical as she is mathematical: she sings, she plays the piano, she plays the flute, and on occasion, she dances. The dancing is nothing any of us has ever seen before and we would not like to see it performed by any other person or animal. Scarlet bo Peep is sensitive and discreet, except at wedding parties. She has excessively sloping shoulders. She bakes the butteriest, fluffiest of rolls and denies, unreasonably, that a better bread product can be found. The roles do not sell for as much as, say, a Swedish Tea Ring at a 4-H County Fair food auction, but they manage well enough.

facebook, bumper stickers, and language

Today, I read this on my former classmate's facebook profile:

"If you can read this. Thank a teacher...
If you are reading it in English....
THANK A SOLDIER!!!"
God Bless America !!


What are we, France? Are we this concerned about language preservation? Who really thinks that English is dying out, or that we are its only practitioners? Is this what the soldiers are doing for us? I didn't... I just... that's not how I conceptualized soldiering?

On a related note (really not related at all), yesterday I read this bumper sticker on the back of a car I drove behind for about ten minutes:

"Jesus is God. Is he YOUR God?"

I have trouble understanding this message as well. I think they probably mean something like "Do YOU have the enviable personal relationship with Jesus that I have?" and not necessarily in a snide way. But the all-caps YOUR throws me off, I don't mind telling you. I have a facebook friend/acquaintance who has listed on her profile a similar sentiment, something about loving "my friends, my family, and my God." I think an & symbol is used, actually. A little smug looking, isn't it? So curly and cozy it is. Sometimes I like the & sign and sometimes it reminds me of a bony, purring cat rubbing against my leg, and then I want to puke. But to get back to the subject at hand:

I've been noticing this lately--this use of the possessive personal pronoun in relation to God. Well, I don't think I like it. Is that bad? It's like my car calling me "my driver." No, YOU'RE MY CAR! Well, no, it's not even like that. It's like a very boring and self-involved rock at the bottom of the ocean calling the ocean "mine"! Hopefully a desire for possession isn't behind this trend, but I fear it is. That's right- fear. I am very afraid. The desire to possess seems to be behind nearly every bad and cruel thing about us, in fact. Really. Even that first thing about the English language. D. H. Lawrence belabors this point like the belaboring pro he is, but I've always found it to be true. And I do agree, Mr. Lawrence, as I've told your ghost and my few living blog readers before: We can possess nothing. (Yes, D. H. Lawrence's ghost reads my blog.)

Finally, I keep meeting and casually conversing with 20-something grammar freaks (I spend far too much time in coffee shops) who complain about comma splices. And I would like to add here the not very interesting observation that facebook has also made comma splices more acceptable, at least to me. Someone's status could be "drinking pop, hoping the Illini win even though they suck, I forgot to go to gramma's," and this is perfectly acceptable, mostly because the commas are separating three separate thoughts that form the list that replies to the question "What's on your mind?" But regardless, I see this so often that I'm now inundated with comma splices and ANYTHING GOES, folks. You might be surprised that I would have formerly enforced such a grammar rule, but sometimes, descriptive grammar methods are too much for me, and whenever prescriptive grammar rules enforce what I consider a more aesthetically appealing use of language, I'm for them. It's just that for most grammar rules, this doesn't hold true. "One of the best short stories of which I know" sure does not sound as good to me as "One of the best short stories I know of," but then again, I am from "the Middle West" as William Maxwell would say, and as that most gentle and generous of Middle Western writers has put it, "Nobody I know in the Middle West has ever gone out of his way to avoid ending a sentence with a preposition." Incidentally, I have it on good authority that when Maxwell wrote "his," he meant "her/his," and certainly with the "her" out front (he was a proponent of affirmative action, you see).

Considering the four people who read this blog actually know things about grammar, maybe you'd like to add your expert opinion? eh? Because, I have a feeling that I only half know what a comma splice is, and that half only from context clues. Actually, I didn't want to talk about grammar. I get really sick of people talking about it. Grammar's really not that interesting, and academics always say the same things about it. I wanted to talk about that first facebook sentiment-- the one that doesn't actually seem to care at all about soldiers, let alone teachers. And now I remember that another former classmate's facebook status yesterday was about eff you all, I serve the military and everyone forgets about me on my birthday. I have nothing to say about this, except that I am sorry, and that when I think of this status update in light of the previously mentioned profile quotation, my mind sort of spins and I am just sick again of how we can't seem to help but mess everything up and for misguided reasons. Clearly, I should be more thankful for those serving in the military, I should probably go to friends' birthday parties, I should probably not express xenophobic sentiments disguised as patriotism or devotion. Well. I can't wait 'til this is fixed for me when we're all robots or genetically perfected automatons!!!



P.S. Is there an alternative to exclamation points? I hate them. From now on purple text or possibly a tiny Michael Jackson icon will signify an exclamation on this blog. Thank you.

one of the best short stories I know of

"When she saw them she put a zinnia in her mouth, and held still."

effective fictional moment of the day

"Anyway, they were poor company and of no help to her with the solitude without prelude that could rise up and take her prisoner when Jacob was away. She might be bending in a patch of radishes, tossing weeds with the skill of a pub matron dropping coins into her apron. Weeds for the stock. Then as she stood in molten sunlight, pulling the corners of her apron together, the comfortable sounds of the farm would drop. Silence would fall like snow floating around her head and shoulders, spreading outward to wind-driven yet quiet leaves, dangling cowbells, the whack of Lina's axe chopping firewood nearby. Her skin would flush, then chill. Sound would return eventually, but the loneliness might remain for days."


-Toni Morrison, A Mercy page 109.

If by "distracted"

she means "way too cool."

It's difficult to trust babies with big skulls.

a) this is funny
b) I wish everyone had to give a speech before they died

exceedingly glad to know

how Olivet Nazarene University spells "peruse."

Dear ever-and-always-forsaken blog

that I turn into a diary because I don't have the desire/energy anymore to comment on this boisterous world,

It is a difficult thing to be 24. So difficult. You don't even know. Especially when you're in Kankakee where 14-year-old boys and 40-year-old nursing assistants stare at you for prolonged, unapologetic minutes every time you walk into a coffee shop (you know what I'm talkin' 'bout, Camille. They don't mean anything by it, I know. It's perfectly polite to stare in East Central Illinois, as it is in Kenya-or so I've heard). Especially when your dog would rather crawl under the bed where he can't be reached and lay there for hours at a time contemplating his own dog-loneliness. BUCK UP, BISCUIT! You're not helping me out here, buddy.

I'm just kidding. It's not that bad. I just picked up Nine Stories again (I know, I'm insane) and found to my delight that I'd never before read the perfectly delightful story Just Before the War with the Eskimos. And, I've been reading people's stories about their experiences with the Peace Corps, and realized that I'm very glad to be sitting here so privileged and bored. But, not really. I'd really rather be crying with the frustration of eating rotten goat meat for a twelfth day straight, or attempting to climb a mountain full of spiders hiding among wildflower thorns, or some such thing. The frustrations of stasis are much worse. It makes you feel pretty bitter and helpless to squander your youth (and what little I've got of youthful energy) waiting and getting nowhere. I also have dresses with nowhere to wear them, but at least I can still wear them, you know?

What I'd really like is to be in Haiti. But I have nothing to offer Haiti. I've somehow just now realized that my degree was only for me (Oh...I have to go back to school, don't I?).

On a positive note, the more I talk to fellow unemployed 20-somethings, the more I realize that we aren't really as complacent as I often think. Most people I've talked to would really rather be doing something to help people--it's just that it's so hard to know where to start when non-profits aren't hiring and this whole system of urban/suburban living in the U.S. is set up to make us work for what we want, and not for what our neighbors need. Please, God, don't let me work a corporate job while giving a portion of my income to charity. I've got to figure out a way to harness 20-something capital-less optimism... should I make an idealist.org-facebook? Hmm, nope, it turns out that a minor in Information Technology Studies merely asks you to postulate about the social impacts of information systems, rather than teaching you anything of programming or web design.

Well, there is the Peace Corps. Apparently I'm going to have to leave home again. But it just takes so much energy to start your life over again every single year. I don't want to do that anymore. I'm all for making new friends and all, but I've got such good old ones. Peace Corps should have an option where you take five of your closest unemployed friends with you to work on the same project together. Except, that's not enough, and they won't do it anyway. Unemployed friends tend to be wishy-washy. They bathe in wish-wash. Can I bring a whole city with me? See, I grow sick of independence. Alas.

Does this all come down to dollars and cents, you ask? It does. It is clearly a case of not having a room of one's own from which to start something. I will consider appealing to wealthy relatives, or to the generous, debt-ridden state of Illinois.

Someone give me something else to think about, please.

Truth.

"I'm going inside now, because I hate you guys."

That's what I just said to the bugs on my back porch. hahaha I'm going crazy.

(UPDATE: The next day I said to a bee, "I could kill you if you want.")

Sometimes the President's appeal works against him, 'cuz all the knowledge I got from that speech was

1997: Question: Where have all the cowboys gone?

2009: Answer: Found one.

1, 2, 3

1. When a field of beans begins to die the round leaves turn all shades of yellow and it looks like a field of wildflowers. If you didn't wear your contacts while driving.

2. Does anyone understand Miss Lonelyhearts? I must have read that too quickly.

3. When you're unemployed, you should get up and get dressed every day anyway. That's conventional wisdom, right? Well, it's true.

bam.

UGHHhhh why does this song/video have to be so awesome and simultaneously so laaaaaame?

It's so freakin cool to refer to women as bitches and place them in the category of "problem." Some day this will no longer be socially acceptable. Won't that be crazy. People will be like, "Can you believe that shit? And that was only forty years ago!" This will be, like, three people saying this on top of an almost-submerged mountain with a leftover penguin and whatever else survives. A centipede, maybe.

what I can't believe exists

is this right here. Why does it exist? I accidentally listened to this guy talk about his book on a Christian radio station while driving to Champaign, and within the space of a few excruciatingly annoying minutes he managed to assert that 

a) men are, of course, born with a greater store of courage

b) they need this courage to protect those "vulnerable and weak" people in their lives (their wives, and yes, those were the actual words used)

c) masculine courage (somehow aligned with physical strength) is what characterizes the heroes of our country- like, for example, the notoriously masculine MLK (...). 

When I read stuff like this I appreciate scholars and their methodical and their measured ways of letting you know that you're just spouting back the lies that you've always liked to be told. Because I can't do it. 

waking me up

Well, East of Eden's the best thing that's happened to me this year. No kidding. Except I get illogically sad that these characters were never real, that of course they never actually lived, and couldn't even have died. And I think of all the good people I know, and know that no one will ever read a book about them. But then, I suppose I believe there's already a story that's been written about all of us. At the moment, though, I don't favor thinking of people as tiny parts of a grand scheme, like stars in the milky way. I guess sometimes I wish that every person were a god, the secret, only-important meaning behind everything.

And that we could know it.

Guess I'll have to invent a machine that turns a person into their life's book.

lucrative opportunity

Do you, by any chance, want me to live in your closet and hand you your outfit for the day as soon as you open the closet door (like pop!)? I will work frantically all night, joyously, in exchange for closet-rent. Think about it.














(note: Looks like this girl had the same idea. She didn't have much to work with, though. The person pretty much had to wear that blanket every day, Little Mermaid style, I guess. It is kinda cute. Hmm. If I were in this closet I would gnaw at the wood all night so that I could design the blanket-dress with little wooden splinter-stars. Have I convinced you yet?)

touch the floors, man

I was at a friend's barbecue (shake-'n-bake-cue?) tonight and all of a sudden I just wanted to get down and feel the floor. It was a dirty hardwood. But I wanted to get down on its level, look at it with my cheek pressed down to it so that every little piece of dust would have texture, and...like get to know it or something?? I just felt insanely grateful to be alive all of a sudden and so the next obvious thought was, man we don't really feel the floors enough. Chicago makes me crazy. That thought definitely made no sense. I swear to God some wire is missing in my brain. If some bit were in place or some wire a little longer, I could probably solve equations. As it is, I get things like this: JOY = FEEL THE FLOOR.

I still think this is the funniest thing I'll ever see.

home

Why didn't they tell us when we left for college that we'd be coming back? I'd already said my goodbyes.

What does this picture mean?

something missing

I keep getting that feeling that something's missing. Like when you go outside too late, and can tell the day was beautiful, but you've missed it for no good reason and you can't get it back.

Things Overheard at Springfield's Public Library Today

"If she ends up like that Channel 55 show, I'm Pregnant and I Didn't Know It, we're in trouble."

"All she wants, all she wants, is to have a baby. But they told her she can't because she'd set it down somewhere and forget where she'd put it." (this was a separate conversation)

-"They say she has depression- confusion." 

-"Okay..." 

-"And, she also has depression."

Many other things not so fit to print, mostly regarding DNA tests, the bread line, and the ethics of responsible parenting. 

English Dept. Blog!

So far pretty darn boring, but I have high hopes for the future. 

sometimes perfectly satisfactory things happen

My old blog address has been taken over by someone who really, REALLY wants some freakin' sweet rain boots. hahahaha. Wait...did s/he mean for the address to be www.boots-rain.blogspot.com??! Maybe boots-rain was taken so s/he had to settle for roots-rain? Oh, this makes my day. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------

I need to find SUPER cute rain boots!!!?

Ok, so my friends b-day is tomorrow, and well, I%26#039;ve put off getting her present. She wants some really cute rain boots but I dont know where to get any! I%26#039;ve been searching all over online, and I found really cute ones at Target online, but Im not sure if they have them in the store or not. Does anyone know if they do? Or maybe somewhere else they may be? Thanks a bunches!

I need to find SUPER cute rain boots!!!?
OMG....Go to PAYLESS they have these really vute rain boots with like little miss,lady bugs,plain solid...ETC but they are so cute
Reply:give her money to buy boots 


she can pick what she wants
Reply:yeah i seen some at target i even been wanting to buy a pair from their


but my mom wouldnt let me
Reply:http://www.piperlime.com/browse/product....
Reply:There is no such thing as cute rainboots.....



dog skin problem

It's been a strange year.

I don't want to say anything.

from me to you

From now on, I'm going to punch every man who harasses me in the face. Really. I just promised myself. If we are in a coffee shop I will pour steaming coffee on their pathetic heads. If they are on bikes I will definitely push them to the ground. 

Can't wait. 

cool.

I was trying to figure out which dog I looked like today, and it is this one. My hair looks like this today.

Wait, not this.
















This.


















Now you know.

Salinger's still alive, so weird, he must know everything by now

I just finished reading Seymour: An Introduction again (why do I keep re-reading my old favorite books instead of new ones? Is that what happens when you get old and disillusioned? I don't have the energy to read the new ones...I read like I'm channel-surfing and skip ahead to the good parts-which I've never done before-and then don't even find them good).

I have the same questions about it:

Why does Buddy think it's a good idea to spend however many pages he spends describing Seymour's physical characteristics? This is so boring to me-I have to skim. I like my characters fuzzy. All I got out of it is wiry black hair and good hands.

I guess he's just building up an aura around Seymour, which tends to convince me that there's a whole lot of as of yet unpublished Glass family stuff, because something must eventually be done with this aura he's made for us.

I'm also half convinced that the Glass family are Salinger's imaginary friends, for real, like Enoch Robinson's in Winesburg, Ohio.

What, in fact, is the point of Seymour: An Introduction in general? It doesn't introduce half as well as Raise the Roofbeams, or Bananafish, or anything else. The only point I can think of would be either to a) introduce Buddy, b) to send latent messages to English majors not to leave tire tracks in Salinger's rose garden, or c) merely to beam.

And it is a pretty cheap trick to introduce Seymour to us on the day of his death (in "A Perfect Day for Bananafish"), kill him off, and then eulogize him forever after in the rest of your writing. How sad. And enticing. Most of the time we'd all rather remember than live, even in books, and even if they aren't our own memories.

Isn't it interesting that Salinger writes as Buddy, but is still so convincing as Seymour, when Buddy reproduces Seymour's letters and notes? Couldn't ole' Salinger have just realllly concentrated and narrated as the Seymour-Oracle person? Buddy's alright and all, but he's so the extremely self-conscious and hesitating and bombastic writer, he's so... well, everyone I know. Couldn't Salinger have just hit the delete button, deleted all of himself away, and kept only the Seymour-like bits of enlightenment? (I know, the answer is no, then Seymour would get boring, too.)

And: how come I never get to hear anything about Boo Boo? I'm pretty sure she's the cool one.




Side note: Have you ever met anyone over the age of 30 who likes Salinger?

daily poetry.

Maybe I should stop putting dollar bills in my mouth when I'm looking for my keys.

Things We Think We Need That We Don't Need

1. Windshield wipers
2. an inside light for your car
3. a rearview mirror
4. cars
5. soap
6. just kidding, we do need soap
7. wait, no we don't
8. exercise bikes
9. cats

Shake Love Sonnet of the Day

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

 Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

 Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

 That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

 Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

 Within his bending sickle's compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

 But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

 I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Am I the only one who hasn't read this article?

At least eight things written here are true. Not least of which is this: stop taking my working class street cred, hipsters! Ha. Really, though. These things weren't quite as meaningless before. Right?

Right??

Oh, I guess they were.


Still, I feel like something has been taken from me! What has been taken from me?? ...the possibility of an anti-conspicuous consumption fashion statement? ...the comforting distance created by class identifiers? You know that scene in Pretty in Pink where the rich girl says "nice pearls..." and that other one where Blaire asks Andy if she's going home to change before they go out and she says, uhhh, I already did? Maybe that's what's been taken from me. People think I'm you guys dressed like me dressed like a grandpa/farmer-gardener/seven-year-old soccer player! Terrible.

I guess I could always go shop at BCBG. Oh wait: no, no I can't.


$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

To make Ellen happy!!!

Great idea of the day:

Someone should make a dance album titled "Appala-cha-cha-cha!"

to drive ellen crazy:

my desktop.


And it thinks the date is Thursday, January 1, 1970.

then again, the 20s were good, too.

your little voice
                  Over the wires came leaping
and i felt suddenly
dizzy
   With the jostling and shouting of merry flowers
wee skipping high-heeled flames
courtesied before my eyes
                           or twinkling over to my side
Looked up
with impertinently exquisite faces
floating hands were laid upon me
I was whirled and tossed into delicious dancing
up
Up
with the pale important
                        stars and the Humorous
                                                moon
dear girl
How i was crazy how i cried when i heard
                                          over time
and tide and death
leaping
Sweetly
        your voice

Sometimes Barbara sees the little people on the street and she takes pity on their little ways.

Every time I accidentally turn to The View I am delighted. For real. The things the younger blonde girl says in this video are also fascinating.

I don't remember either, Jean. Just kidding, I do.

I find the comment on the wall of this facebook group hilarious:






even more so because Jean sounds like a teacher, and in earnest.

The group reminds me of my discussions with Ellen (discussions heavily littered with ageist statements, I'll warrant ye) about techno-phobes. People are still seeing people and people are still reading books, while finding more ways to communicate with each other, and more ways to read, so chill out, old people! Just kidding, older people. Just kidding, matured individuals. Just kidding, your mom.

Suspicions Confirmed.

1. born/lives in California, 2. last name of Grossinger.

Miranda July is for hipsters.

And you so changed your name, which was likely originally Julie Federbrinkerstein. But your short stories sure are funny sometimes.

reppin' shep

We saw a really large exhibit of Shepard Fairey's work at the ICA in Boston. I prefer the portraits, like this one of Biggie-




























to the political posters/ads/painting-collages. The portraits aren't exactly subtle, but they're not exactly obvious either (minus Obama's, which is Shep's one purposely biased portrait). As far as the war/capitalism propaganda art goes, well, on the one hand, it's kind of cool to have, say, some roses shooting out of guns (war/peace, desire for good/evil), and on the other hand...it's not really. I have a pretty limited response to something like that. Some of his stuff is more complicated though, and as annoying as it is to look at branding/propaganda art, probably my favorite thing was in a detail of Shep's (I guess I call him Shep now) blown-up version of a dollar bill: at the top in fine print, instead of "THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE," Shep has something to the effect of "WORTH EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE WILLING TO GIVE IN ORDER TO GET IT." Agreed.

Is that what you think happened, Boston?

We saw this in Boston Common. If you look closely you'll see the story of America.

Word.

I am against the One-Man-Show.

Ellen, Melissa and I had tickets to see the play "Line" in the Village this past week (apparently we were in the Village, anyway- I thought we were in Harlem. Either way this sentence makes me seem really cool.) When we got there, though, a 85- to 90-year-old woman, the owner of the establishment, informed us that the lead actor was sick, so "you'll be watching this other one instead." The other one? A one-man-show starring Spatz Donovan. Yeahhhh Spatz. There were seven people in the theatre, so us, and four other people. And it was the saddest, most fascinating and simultaneously boring, bizarre thing I've ever seen. He impersonated all the old comedic geniuses, like Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, and about 18 other dead white men whose names I'd never heard, switching hats in between characters and smearing greasy streaks of clown paint on his face. This obviously meant nothing to us, since we'd never heard of most of these people, and could care less about their comedic legacies. Along with Spatz's impressions of the comedians' particular style of laughing and gesture-making (there is something profane about laughter on a stage), he would sing sad songs ("You're the funny man," he sang, "all alone"), and exhort us to "remember the old clowns, who inspired your sarcastic, mean-spirited comedians of today." He broke character several times throughout the performance, at one point saying "Isn't this sad? This is what happens when old hippies stay in the Village too long...all those drugs" and at another point stopping to ask, "...Are you having fun?" Yes, yes we nodded reassuringly. No, no not at all. Except insofar as knowledge of your existence makes my own seem comparatively new, promising, and as of yet unwasted?


Although, I will say, I find it sort of hilarious that at one point he turned his pants' pocket inside out and said, "Look, a one-eared elephant." Come on, that's kind of funny.

I'm not going to lie to you, I'm a pretty nostalgic person. If you look into the distance and sing a sad song about the past, I'll probably cry. But... no, it just isn't sad, dude. We just don't find this sort of slap-stick comedy funny anymore (for the most part), which is fine.

And anyway, I am against the one-man-show. I don't think that a one-man, or a one-woman, is... showy enough? I feel them to be a spectacle. A pathetic one. It feels vaguely like watching your sister put on a play in the living room, with sock puppets and wearing your mother's old dress. Fun at home, but embarrassing on a public stage.


For more high-quality phone pictures of our roadtrip so far, go to Ellen's blog.

Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough!

(Update: I have been listening to Michael Jackson's music for 20 of the 24 hours of the past four days in the car.)


I agree, the media coverage of Michael Jackson's death is insane. If I were in charge of CNN, I would mandate 24 hours of MJ-only news coverage following his death, sure, but I'm an irrational fan who should never, ever be in charge of a global news organization. It's been over a month. This. is. crazy.

However. What pop culture phenomenon has ever been this fascinating?

Take this lil' tidbit here:

"The prosthesis he normally attached to his damaged nose was missing, revealing bits of cartilage surrounding a small dark hole," the witness told the Mail.


This cannot be true.


I can only assume that whoever does not care about this also has no interest or natural curiosity in the bewildering mystery of such facts of nature as... black holes. He's our contemporary, but Michael Jackson is really as mystifying to me as King Tut. His death has just asked us to really try to come to terms for the first time with his existence in the first place, and I can't even do it.

woolfy

I'm reading Night and Day, apparently Woolf's experiment with classicism, "in the vein of Austen's comedies of manners" as my book jacket says (yeah, like Austen...only weak). Reading it years after I first read Woolf's later, more experimental (modernist) stuff is more or less... superfluous. I'm so in love with To the Lighthouse that I doubt there is a paragraph that doesn't teach me something* each time I reread it, but this book is... empty. Why did you do this, Virginia? Why? It especially confuses me in light of everything Woolf says in her essay Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown about the importance of character-building, which I adore (and which some Sam-the-Eagle sort of people find convenient to pat on its adorable little head, but that is beside the point). Some might wager that it has to do with the artist's developmental trajectory (MFA students tell me that everyone has to write an embarrassing first novel and then throw it away), but I think she might have done it on purpose to fake us out. Because this was 1919. She had already written The Voyage Out. So, yeah. She did. Dang, Virginia.


Also: Is this the intentional fallacy? Well, in case you haven't heard, I've regained my beloved role as amateur reader.

Also: I'm totally above the intentional fallacy anyway, except in the case of Virginia Woolf because she has a face to me because of that stupid movie after that Cunningham novel and anyway I am going to be her for Halloween and I could probably channel her if I wanted to. I pretty much already look like this:





*Note: When I say "teach me something," I mean either a) teach me something about humanity/existence/the nature of reality or b) communicate beauty and usually c) both, and yes, this is all I care about in art.

FINE, world! I'm back.

This is so 2001.