They fling their speech

I think I might be done here.

I'm going to switch to here:

outoftheabundance.blogspot.com/




Click on over! It's been a fun time, LJ.


:)

1. White jeans and how they should be worn with extreme caution. I don't care if they're in style or whatever. 5% of the population can pull this look off. Perhaps my disgust is influenced by my past experience with white jeans. (I was in a show choir where we were forced to wear them as a costume.) Since then, they pretty much equate bunchy-crotch awkwardness, with a Lindy-hop thrown in there for good, embarrassing, measure. I mean, if you're 95% confident that you can rock a pair, by all means give it a shot. I just don't recommend it.

2. Diagraming sentences and how I really think I'd enjoy taking an linguistics class. Hating linguistics was a big part of my college existence. I felt stupid in that class because I had no background knowledge, and everyone else picked it up naturally. I am not the best at developing study habits because I usually don't have to study. So I just convinced myself I hated it because I didn't understand it. But now I think I would love it.

3. Weird song lyrics like Counting Crows' line in "American Girls": "I've been going through your closet/trying on your clothes/almost every day." What the hell is that supposed to mean? Actually that whole song really creeps me out.

4. Fate, and how strange it is. I'm about to teach Oedipus, and when I really start thinking about the issue of fate that play presents my mind just turns into a slinky...I can't make it think in straight lines.

5. Which awesome power ballad I should choose first when I sing Karaoke tonight.

1. It has been a Ben Folds kind of day. I played it all day in my classroom. I love having the kind of job where I control the music.

(I didn't play it, like, during class...just during breaks and such.)

2. It has been a week of awkward moments. I didn't really realize how many there have been until Kel and I started trading awkward stories. I've got many. Pretty fantastic.

3. Junk Food is the devil. It sucks your soul. This whole week I've been too busy to grocery shop, or too lazy, and so I've been scavenging, and I feel as a bottom-dwelling creature of the sea must feel: kind of greenish and round.

4. I wrote this poem with my tongue stuck firmly in my cheek, so please read it knowing that. I never preface poems, but this one, well...I mean, it doesn't really represent who I'd like to be, but it does represent who I am. And it made me happy to write. You wouldn't believe the high I get when I write something and it's complete the first time. Sometimes, I write something and it tugs and tugs and smudges its way to a poem. But other times, it's like the whole thing just falls out, and be it good, bad or whatever, it is a finished thing, and it Exists. This one fits the latter category. And I like it.

Coming of Legs

I was born with wide feet
that grew too large too soon
at 10, I sat with shoes uncomfortably folded
under knees, so no one would know
I was a circus freak, a giant, an anomaly.

I got my mother’s thighs
for that, she constantly apologizes
and laughs, saying even when she
couldn’t sleep or eat
for a time in her life,
(she was 99 pounds, a fact which I think
she is secretly proud of)
Her mother-in-law told her
she looked ‘healthy’
in a two piece.
She sighs when she looks at them
‘drumsticks’ she says.

I say, half-heartly,
but we can walk.

Yeah.
Small consolation for our cancelled careers
as Broadway dancers and Interesting Women.

And I hate my knees.
When I had to buy knee-pads,
they didn’t fit over those dimpled
bowling balls, always white
and pudged, wrinkled like old men.

The last time
my last boyfriend
ran his hand around the hem
of my dress,
he whispered
I love your legs.

I knew, by then, the right response
was a sigh and smile, (a knowing one)
-the only proper acknowledgment.

But instead I gasped:
‘Really?” As if he’d given me a gift
or said he wasn’t leaving,
or something else great
and startling. He said,

Yeah.

My legs and I from this point on
walk differently.

It's you and only you
who can, frightened, finally
speak the worlds and words of truth.
Stutter, silent, blink and raise your eyes up
up to the hills, those hills that
have and always will hold you.
You replaced your ocean sunsets with their
more constant, stubborn subtly. Always there.
You have brought yourself here
you spoke it into being, didn't you?


It's you and only you
and you've spent so many words and syllables
tumbling, teasing, hinting at an existence of a truth
strong enough to earn a name dropping
here, tangled amid all words and wonderings
to replace pronoun with proper
to stop the mystery and stop the clamor
once and for all, to prove yourself
or prove yourself insane
or at the very least, say something.



It's you, on a stage nobody else constructed
raise, raise your eyes and open up
also your lips. It's you, you and only you
who know what and where your heart is
so speak. Speak it.

All creation began and begins with words
spoken truthfully; the words that sit
on your heart already. So read it.

Nor do I believe
"artistic genius" is the possession
of any artist. No one has made
the art by which one makes the works
of art. Each one who speaks speaks
as a convocation. We live as councils
of ghosts. It is not "human genius"
that makes us human, but an old love,
an old intelligence of the heart
we gather to us from the world,
from the creatures, from the angels
of inspiration, from the dead--
an intelligence merely nonexistent
to those who do not have it, but
to those who have it more dear than life.

-Wendell Berry
from "Some Further Words"

(rutter) pie jesu
(ollabelle) all is well
(dave matthews band) steady as we go
(sufjan) concerning the ufo sighting near highland, illinois
(radiohead) fake plastic trees
high and dry
street spirit
(chopin)prelude in e minor
(nickel creek) this side
(sinead o'connor) in this heart
(iron & wine) evening on the ground
(damien rice) dogs
rootless tree
(ben folds) landed
(ray lamontagne) be here now
can I stay
(bon iver) re: stacks

In order to shake things up a bit, the family Lee booked a cabin in Yosemite. The plan: spend Christmas week hiking, biking and ah-haing surrounded by mountain meadows and flowing streams. It was going to be like opening that page in Oprah Magazine, the one with a peaceful vista covering an entire spread. Except for a week.

Three days before departure, I think everyone was getting nervous. Although nobody has said it, as the rain began to fall, the trip began to lose the "Oprah's aha moment" vibe and take on more of a I'm-freezing-my-ass-off; how-many-"Clue"-games-can-we-really-play? vibe. So, when I collapsed on my couch with a bad case of strep throat, nobody seemed very sad.

My mom didn't even complain too much about having to unpack all the gifts and food and clothes...the family cheerfully referred to my illness as a "Godsend".

I spent the first part of the week holed up on my couch, drinking soup and tea and thanking God for Penicillin, and replaying the exact moment in third period when a certain student got very close to me, allegedly to ask me a grammar question, and then coughed 5 times into my face. 5 short, staccato coughs. Cover your mouth! I barked, springing back in alarm. But it was too late.

I headed down to the homestead on Christmas eve morning, still feeling a little woozy. When I arrived my mom was holding a dvd box. She asked if I remembered the show "Christy". I did remember:

"Christy" fits into the same genre as "Little House on the Prairie". Set in 1912, it chronicles the adventures of Christy Huddleston, a feisty schoolmarm who moves to the backwoods of the Appalachians. Along the way, she meets and promptly enchants two men: a forthright young minister with high ideals and a rugged, intelligent doctor with a mysterious past.

Hello? Who wouldn't be hooked? The Lee ladies settled in around noon. Come 6:00, we looked at one another and said we supposed we should take a stab at celebrating Christmas. We fixed supper, read the Christmas story, and hung and filled stockings. Sang some carols. Around 9:30, we looked at one another. Another episode, someone said, in a joking tone. But nobody laughed.

I mean, I could, if anybody else wants to...

We were in front of the new flat screen within 5 minutes.

We're still watching. At this point, we're all talking in quaker accents. Early this morning, we skipped ahead to the final show and realized that the whole thing ends in a cliff-hanger: Christy stands between the two men, looking tortured and doe-eyed, and...freezeframe.

Apparently, there was not enough funding and support for a second season, so our heroine remains forever wild-eyed and confused.

We could be described similarly. We jumped online to figure out why the show was cancelled, but we could find nothing. No explanation. Just a few chatrooms devoted to fans of the the rugged doctor "Neil MacNeil" and the knowledge that a town in Tennessee hosts an annual "Christy-fest".

Our conversation since has been punctuated with ideas about how the show could have been saved. We blame the writers, whose unrealistic, melodramatic plots eventually choked the series.

Yet we still watch. We're putting in another one as I type.

So, lj friends, I bid you happy holidays. And, as Jenny put it, from the Lees,

Merry Christy.

Dear Loud talker
at the table beside me:



must you shout, must you wave your hands?
have you realized that the old man next to you
stopped listening 20 minutes ago?

Ah, don't tease me that way, picking up your
noise-reduction headphones,
as if you were going to stop talking
then waving them in the air
and continuing to flow the steady, monotone
out of your tiny slit of a mouth.

Yes, yes, put them on, go ahead.
You have been talking straight for 2 hours now
and that is enough.
Put them on.

Or give them to me.

I found a playlist I put on Jenny's ipod called "music to wash your soul off". And it's doing just that. Pretty fantastic, the things that music can do.

I'm sitting on my couch. Today I was supposed to run my first ever 1/2 marathon. But most of LA's surrounding area is burning. So they canceled the race. It has been the longest day. I feel like it should be at least 5:00, when it's only 2:30.

All the anticipation, months of getting up to run when I'd rather sleep, of planning my day around the hour that I would give to training...the discipline that I developed...distance running was something I never expected to enjoy, but it has become such a cool part of my life. I wasn't just looking forward to the feeling of finishing. I was actually looking forward to being there during the race. I went to bed with that Christmas-eve feeling. And woke up to an email saying there would be no race.

Also, I got really into the whole "carboload" idea. I think I consumed about a pound of spaghetti last night. I just liked the idea of eating food as actual fuel, instead of just for enjoyment. It was so fun to go out last night, order huge plates of pasta and extra bread, and talk about how awesome it was going to be.

Now I'm sitting around, waiting for the day to end. And I'm still incredibly full of bread. I never want to see pasta again. Or food, for that matter.

Time Management is not my strongest point. I am constantly doing about 15 different things. Sure, I pretend to live by a calendar. But half the time, I don't even know what's coming next until a bell rings or I get a note in my box or somebody tells me to do something.

I have a theory that I sub-consciously sort through life's exhausting tasks based on my inner self's belief in their importance. Somewhere in my brain there is a tiny room where little people file the millions of post-it notes I mentally scribble during every single moment of my day...I imagine that these post-its say things like:

BTSA shhhffmmIIP shouldIdothat or waititisduenow

prescriptionwayyyyyylategeezlazy

tallstudentneed websiteemailhelp

birthdayalreadyhappened.damn.

carisdirty! veryverydustycan't be goodforpaint

proofsdue 5dayswhich means 10 maybe

neednap? wantcoffeeand pencil.


You see, in my theory, the little people translate, transcribe, evaluate, rate these commands, and then generate reports which are then sent back to my active brain. These messages surface during the moments when I am sitting at home on Friday afternoons. They pop up with little 'ding' noises, the same kind your hear when a new email comes into your inbox:

'ding':

Dear Respected Person who appears to be in charge of this brain,

It has come to our attention that you are relaxing comfortably on the couch. Throughout the week, you appeared to be stressed and busy. We have prepared a list of possible actions you could be currently taking to relieve your backlog of personal responsibility. You have the option of completing your overdue BTSA work, calling CVS, washing your car, grading To Kill a Mockingbird essays, sending parent alerts to underperforming students, mailing the bills on the counter, changing your verizon plan, handwashing your laundry, returning phonecalls, or continuing to sit on the couch in a moronic daze, sifting through facebook photos of people you hardly know (stalker). It is your choice. We have completed our responsibility. We strongly recommend some action be taken.

Sincerely,

The Official Department of Organization and Sanity



When I ignore this message, which I plan to do, then the workers will go back, streamline, prioritize, and send me back another one:

'ding':

GET UP AND WALK TO THE POST OFFICE. LESS THAN A BLOCK AWAY. WILL TAKE 2 MINUTES.
THEN GRADE. JUST PICK UP YOUR PENCIL. START READING. TAKE ACTION.
-O.D.O.S.


.....


That's my current time management strategy. Perhaps it needs a little reworking. But the facebook feed beckons...this guy who was in my sophmore lit class just uploaded pictures from a wedding he attended this past summer...I should probably check those out first...

1.

I tried to jump on the blogger bandwagon and give an opinion on prop 8. I even wrote a whole manifesto of sorts about how the church should love and not hate and attend to its own shortcomings before trying to become the moral compass of a secular nation...It went on for quite some time. But I don't feel like posting it: when I read it over, it just sounded angry and pompous and self-consciously wordy. What really irked me about that experience was that I couldn't make my writing powerful. Is that selfish? It feels selfish. But it's true.


2.

I am going to run a 1/2 marathon in a week. Tuesday I finished my last 9 mile run at the Rose Bowl. I pushed myself too hard, and I blame these 3 factors: Van Halen ("Jump") on the ipod, a bag of "magic" (caffeinated) jelly beans, and the annoying old man with ridiculously long spidery legs who kept bounding past me. I got into a sort of magic bean induced haze where every time he passed me I had to speed up and catch him. I won finally, leaving him in my very dust and pounding the pavement victoriously as the synthesizer wailed in my ears.

And then my knee started aching. It was a peculiar feeling. I stopped, I stretched, I kept going. I finished the last loop very gingerly, very slowly. I had lots of energy left but no way to transfer that energy into my legs. Both knees throbbed and twisted. I felt like they might...leave. I know that sounds strange but it's the closest I can come to a description. I have never really considered my knees negotiable before. They were just chubbily there.

I soaked them, I'm babying them, we've reconciled; I've promised to show them the respect they deserve. But it was kind of scary.


3.

I took myself to the Huntington Library yesterday. At first this felt a little strange: I think I was the only one there without an adorable baby or a slightly overdressed date. But I needed to just be, and to be alone, and it was perfect. I took a blanket and stretched out and read and watched other people take pictures and read a book. I walked through the bamboo forest and breathed in and out and became conscious of the effort it takes to breathe. I went to the galleries and "hmmmed" and "ahhhed" and scratched my chin to show my interested in the exhibits. I was awkwardly flirted with by a bushy, bespectacled docent. I had fun.

Somewhere in the middle of my day I felt an amazing peace. You see, most Saturdays I wake up with an incredible knot in my stomach: I am worried that I'm not making the right choices in my life. I don't talk about it with too many people because it inevitably ends up sounding whiny and insipid. But it's always there. Especially on days that should be full of peace and rest. The worry crops up, and I feel this panic, as if I'm supposed to find the perfect solution in the span of one Saturday (the same day I'm supposed to reduce my laundry pile, refill my refrigerator, plan my week of lessons, wash my car, pay my parking ticket, etc).

On my walk I came to a beautiful Eucalyptis tree. It surprised me...it seemed to jump at my from around the corner. It was huge and alive and powerful and very pure. The sun was striking the white bark, the light all concentrated in patches and beams and the green moss at the roots of the tree glimmered. The whole thing was very Narnian.

It was a nice moment full of peace, a reminder to be patient with the present, and the promise that life does not have to be fixed in the span of a single Saturday.

I wrote this night down years ago
this very night,
I wrote, “night falls down”
described it perfectly. I think
I was a better poet then:
I expected less
I knew the names of things.

How did she know
this was always in me?
How did 18 dare to write down
future things, caring only
about cadences and rhythms,
crafting abstract lines of tragedy?

It seemed a little further away, then
it all seemed pretty, sparkling
the way broken glass gleams
in headlights on the highway.

there will be the fall
again and again
and the journey away
with the angels mocking
all you could have had
if you ignored every other voice
if things were different
if you weren't human, didn't want
to know.

there will be the barren land
and the planting
the twisting, gristle on bone
and bloodshed, the wrestling
of a name.

and sometimes jubilee
a call to free all debts
and we will clench our fists
happy in our regret, our boundaries.

there will be the wandering
and the bricklaying
and the walking through water


and the call from heaven
to declare who you are
smear it on your doorframe, even.

The sky is stunning. The clouds are bright-pink, there are early stars.

I'm in front of my tv, listening to the debate, watching McCain smile superciliously, wondering if Obama's hair was gray two months ago. I can't remember. I want them to stop laughing at each other for effect and stop making reference to synecdochic "Joes". It's so annoying. Joe-the-Plummer, Joe Six-Pack. Who are these people? I don't even have a single friend named Joe. That doesn't mean anything to me.

I went outside and tried to see the horizon, but the trees blocked most of it, but it was still beautiful.



Today I walked through the farmer's market and felt like I'd just moved to town. Literally, like I hadn't lived here a day. I don't know why I felt that way. It wasn't bad, just a feeling.

I just made a fake choking noise when McCain told us Palin was a role model for women. And I actually kind of strained my throat in the process. Ouch. And then I started laughing when he mixed up "breath of fresh air" and made it sound like "breast of..." We need that breast in the white house? Snicker.

Well, I have to be going. It's been fun.

Tell me why this makes me cry?

"He turned out the light and went into Jem's room. He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning."

-To Kill a Mockingbird.


I wish Atticus was a real person. I mean, I wish he had existed...not just parts of him that inspired Harper Lee to create him. I wish he was real.

There is an article today in the Times that hit a nerve.

In "Gratitude With Attitude", columnist Meghan Daum says:


"I also suspect that our graciousness deficit is the product not only of our love of sarcasm but of the paranoia that comes from a constant fear of disappointment...we've become so wary of our own ambitions and desires that it's easier to denigrate them than to try to fulfill them."

She says, well, write it down,
and I feel hypocritical. I just finished
saying how I write everything.
Saying that’s how I find control, saying
it is my survival.

With you it’s different, I can’t, won’t,
embalm it all, yet, in black and white.
It’s living still, sometimes (and sometimes
not at all). Either way, the words won’t stick
they slip through me, they are hiding
and if I ever tell this story
it will be as an old woman,
wise, finally,
and happy with the ending.

You've probably already seen this, but if you missed it:

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/palin-hillary-open/656281/

Tina Fey is uncanny. The whole thing is amazing.

:)

Today I ran without music. It was just because my ipod wasn't charged. But it was exactly what I needed to do. It ended up a sort of personal poetry slam; I keep thinking of lines and rhythms in a way I haven't really done in...well, in a while. Six months or so, I'd say.

Now I'm winding down from my insane day, and I'm listening to a song I've never heard before. And it's kind of what I would have written down if I'd had paper while I was running. Of course, what I had to say sounds nothing like this. But this is what I had to say. So much so that I've listened five times in a row. It's comforting (it's a frustrating sort of comfort, really) to think that sometimes what you think you have to say has already been said, quite beautifully.

As pretty as a song
A song could ever be
Like Christmas on a river
Without a boat or Christmas tree
This afternoon with you was something like a letter
The kind that someone writes but never sends
And when you look at me like that
I know that someday it's gonna end
And when you go
I bet you miss your friends

As angry as a breeze
Tugging hard upon the sails
I've been moving through these streets forever
From Baltimore to Amsterdam
These things inside me, they repeat like broken records
Spinning pretty somethings behind my eyes
And when I can't look at you
I can paint your picture perfectly in my mind
And when I get old
I'm gonna miss you all the time

That wind up in the trees
Scattering bluebirds all over the place
Shuffling children and piles of leaves
I wish I was the wind, I'd touch your face
This afternoon with you was something like a letter
The kind that someone writes but never sends
And when you're good to me
It makes me blue because someday it's gonna end
And when we pass on
I bet you miss your friends
Bet you miss your friends
I bet you miss your friends

(Friends, Ryan Adams & The Cardinals, from Cold Roses)