Sitting in Biology Class

Everyone is pipeting their saliva and saline solution into small tubes and centrifuging them and shaking them and bent heads examine small amounts of clear liquid and Courtney peeks over my shoulder and chuckles like a redneck. She bought peanut butter m&ms and animal crackers and skittles. She bounced in front of the vending machine as she popped in the coins, giddy. The lovebirds are conversing in the corner. He has his hands on his hips and a contemplative countenance; she has her hands in her pockets and is smiling. And I still have a paper to write. On Dickinson and Frost. It’s too bad that I’ve procrastinated; I love Dickinson and Frost and hate not to do them justice. But can anyone do them justice? I don’t think they can even do themselves justice. And if they can’t, no one can. Kendal says: “Will it make you self-conscious if I read over your shoulder?” Its a wonder that anyone understands anyone else, ever. Its a small world. Its a small monkey-rope. Its like, we all have the same brain.

Retrospect

This summer was the summer of feeling hermit crabs with our bare feet in the sand at the bottom of the ocean and giving them to little kids on shore, of imitating Jason Bourne floating in the water and of watching far too much America’s Next Top Model, What Not to Wear, Top Chef and How I Met Your Mother. It was the summer of starting up a conversation in Italian with real live Italians at my favorite cafe in the world, of learning French and Spanish phrases from an app on my iPhone with my cousin while walking around the neighborhood, of learning sign language at Barnes and Noble on the hard carpet, of visiting Taylor Swift’s childhood hangout, and of watching in disbelief as the cousin made a wallet-busting purchase of ten dollars on a purple (waterproof) watch in a New Jersey toy store. It was the summer of the four dollar cappuccino (my bailout plan: everyone buys one Starbucks drink per day), of red lipstick and of musk melon. This was the summer of trying to eke out a college essay, of deciding not to pierce my earlobes, of refusing to buy the Japanese erasers that looked like fast food and of finally buying a “Kudos” sticky note pad (kudos on your sobriety). This was the summer of sharing the car with my brother, of actually reading books, of getting deliciously lost in Central Park and winding up at a castle, of Fairway’s Famous Toasted Granola, and of a viking-themed birthday cake. It was the summer of chocolate chip pancakes and cookiekatie, of my henna tattoo, of the badass bruise on my cousin’s arm (you know how basketball camp can be), of playing pool and ping pong with boys from the Northeast who I’d never met, and of yoga on the great lawn overlooking the moon rising behind the brightening NY skyline. It was the summer of peanut m&ms, like always, of J. crew outlet shopping, of the ghetto mall, of bananagrams at my uncle’s deli, and of breaking the elevator button in the apartment and having awkward negotiations with the doorman before opting to dash up the stairs. It was also the summer of being ripped off at an otherwise delightfully haunting, Poe-themed cafe.

Space/ Time Continuum Decision Making

Do you ever high-five your past self through the space-time continuum? For example, my choice not to take a math class this year merited some serious skin for Past Me. Although I appreciate math and even take pleasure in knowing and applying various equations, it takes much more brain strain than my other subjects. Incidentally, I have always chalked this up to my right-brain predominance. The point is that my nightly workload is essentially cut in half because of that day when I signed up for classes and thought about how Calculus might affect the happiness of Future Me. In the future, I envisioned tears, stress-induced breakouts, and general exhaustion. The whole concept makes me wonder about the alternate universe where we live by the alternative decision that never made its debut in this universe. I digress. Since I have trouble making decisions, I find the space-time continuum method a brilliant tool in decision evaluation.

Dear Whitney Moon,

Here’s my shout out to you and Texas Honey Ham boy. I hope it works out. Accept your tacos with a coy smile.

Based on a dream

something bleeding still beating
the sidewalk is breaking
lightning shiver in my spine
i am running in my mind
but my feet uninclined
the window shatters. nothing matters
but a timely retreat
and screaming words at my feet
in the crushing concrete
soundless in the concrete

Not procrastinating… preserving

I am on page 98 in All The King’s Men. I like the number 98. It would be sad to ruin the moment by progressing to page 99.

“I eat a persimmon and the teeth of a tinker in Tibet are put on edge” Robert Penn Warren

Two men, with boxes- carrying cardboard packages.
One man, different each time, twice today with a same-sized box in his hands.
Held by the corners while he talked to his lady-friend walking adjacent in the slant-light.
Two men disjointed-an hour apart, a parking lot apart, half the world away
bringing boxes to their cars.
connected by corrugated paper and wondering
Why they felt like smiling.
Then someone ate a persimmon in Tibet.
This poem inspired by the poetry of Allen Ginsberg

Angst

Good grief. I’m such an angsty kid.

Finals Week: The College Edition

Strange to post here again after several months of abstinence. The website where my newer blog is located so here I am washed up on the plutonian shores of WordPress, grateful for the respite that blogging offers the unproductively restless soul. I ought to be writing about manic-depression but alas, i have little motivation for such trivialities as formatting an APA-acceptable paper. I would be studying manic-depression if I wasn’t supposed to be. It’s about to get dark outside. The best time of day.

So Let it Be Frozen

This might be my last post. May this blog forever be a freeze frame of me in my angsty adolescence, like the squaws in the museum of natural history.

stride rite

I keep boomeranging back to this theme for my blog. I’m attracted to the magazine format i guess. And I’m such a boomeranger you wouldn’t even believe… okay, you probably would.

So my long-lost Lil Wayne poster came in…

So my long-lost Lil Wayne poster came in the mail today. Actually I ordered two Lil Wayne posters: one for one of my besties and one for myself. Other ways I plan to spruce up the walls of my chintzy dormitory: A Good Will Hunting poster (It kind of looks like Matt Damon and Robin Williams are on fire, but I don’t mind. It’s “interesting”- shout out to Dardy- and it’s my favorite movie so it makes me happy), A Rolling Stone, Taylor Lautner poster (pretty cute I must say even though I’m not gaga for him- and it’s for my roomie’s birthday anyway), Pink Magnetic Strips (on which I will magnetically pin photos I snapped and ordered from snapfish.com very cheaply), Index Cards With Bible Verses (I’m still not sure how best to arrange them stylistically, like, as a border around a mirror? or in a chain above my desk? or slipped in a plastic, accordion, vertical photo-displayer you can pin to the wall?). As you can see I’m very excited about the interior design aspect of college. I think me getting really into dorm design is a subconscious form of denial that I will attend college in the fall, or at least avoiding thinking about it. To be honest, when I do think about I feel sick. Or nothing.

napsymptote

this empty hotel restaurant is a good nap atmosphere. if only i could doze off in public. lively jazz wafts in from the lobby, incoherent concierge conversation choppily cuts through the music at odd intervals, silverware clinks from tables being set in the back of the restaurant, and a soft afternoon light reflects off the glossy floor tiles, tempting my eyelashes to lower, lower, low… the lanky doorman keeps walking in and out of the front doors. he wears glasses and stands outside the lobby, squinting into the chilly street and opening the door for whoever bustles in with their bags and companion who they randomly found out there in the world. i don’t think i can do anything else until i sleep. my eyelids want to close. so badly.

Sometimes it’s okay not to be original. Sometimes a successful day is one in which you can’t be bothered to take off your pajamas for anything.

Things I Like Today

Being arbitrary
The color green
Hope
My posters
TV (loving you Philo)
School

Overdone: Trying to Make Fetch Happen: Marathon Time

Overdoing it is such a thing for me. I have so much energy from this mad impetus to make people happy. I want so much from life but I don’t always go about living the right way. Sometimes, instead of living in the present, instead of making peace with imperfection, I rush to fill the negative space with words and create meaning by wearing a figurative red hunting hat. In the process I miss details. I miss the dimples of life. The intricacies of a simple moment. The nonverbal communication flies over my head in a million pieces and I’m to busy thinking of things to say to pick up the signal. It’s like holding the iPhone 4 the wrong way. It’s basically hedonism. Or gluttony. I am ravenous for satisfaction. For perfection, maybe. I try to get everything I possibly can out of every moment but what I am realizing this year is that the best way to do that is sometimes to sit silently in the car with someone and look out the window. Or to rhyme a bunch of random words. Or to drink a sprite in the car at Sonic. Or to grab the first thing that catches your eye. It’s about surrender and not always trying to make things happen. Trusting that things will fall into place without you. That the stars align just fine without your direction and that if something like a commercial airline can fly through air then maybe you can interact with people at a party without worrying. That’s how I sleep at night. Stop trying to make “fetch” happen.

But there’s this gray zone I get stuck in sometimes, where I get stuck in my own head. The gray matter zone. My philosophy has been that I try to make myself so vulnerable to the painful truths of life that it’s almost like I openly seek them, I want to stub my toe on them, because if I am vulnerable, nothing can hurt me. Because a long time ago I decided that by always being open to the fact that I could be wrong, I could somehow avoid being really wrong, because I didn’t pretend to know what I was talking about. What is that?

It’s a weird philosophy. It’s a way of living that is full of self-criticism and thus self-centeredness. I thought, the real way to not feel pain is to feel all of it, convert it into a suggestions/comments/questions box. Be amoebic, freeform, play-doh. Be so open to criticism that when you get it (mostly from your own head) you instantly absorb it and self-correct without hurting because you weren’t made of any substantial thing to begin with. That’s why I can be so harsh on myself, because I feel like if I’m wrong I want to know about it. I don’t want to be ignorant. It’s that whole “out damn spot”, Macbeth thing. I’m a purist. OCD. And I am always open to questioning myself, which, in a way makes me quite unstable. I’m never sure of what I’m doing. It’s the straw man philosophy and honestly I think it’s sounding more and more like trash.

But does God want me to live like this? No. This is pharisee-living. This is not freedom. This is why I love Galatians 5: “Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you”. And this verse kind of sums up the chapter: “When you attempt to live by your own religious plans and projects, you are cut off from Christ, you fall out of grace. Meanwhile we expectantly wait for a satisfying relationship with the Spirit. For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love.”

I am weak. I am not right all the time. I am made in the image of God and permeated by the holiness of the Spirit. For when I am weak I am strong. Not by works. His grace is sufficient, arketos.

So I don’t need to try so hard. They say running isn’t so hard. It seems hard at first but it’s really not bad at all.

As Paul says in Philippians: “Friends, don’t get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I’ve got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back”.

It’s marathon time.