Passing Dreams
In honor of April's Divinity and to welcome her properly, I make this post long.
Another semi-sad day to report. It was my last official day as Business Manager for Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Art. Sasha and I blew the last hour of work talking and I told her of the strange impulse to drown myself after completing my last final. She said that I must be a writer since that is the kind of ending the modern heroine tends to give herself. The ultimate expression of liberation is the unpeeling from life. James Hall, our astrologically-brilliant Nonfiction editor has often cautioned me against the water. He said since I am a Scorpio, water will always call me back toward it. And that water had a particularly bad omen for me. Silvia Plath, born on my birthday, tried more than once to drown herself. I caution Amy, both a writer and child of October 27th against the water.
I have dreams of drowning often. And in them I can feel the rough feeling of salt water going down my wind pipe. I can feel the current churning in my lungs. It's never like a falling dream, where you wake up before you hit the ground. I hold my breath in my sleep and wake up coughing madly trying to expel sea water that is still in the bay. In March when I was so unhappy, I had frequent dreams of having some terminal disease that would leave me drowning in my own fluids, and being faced with having to tell people. I always awoke before I had to tell Derrick, as if to tell him I would soon be in the ground was the same as hitting it. I had completely forgotten all those dreams. The importance of it is lost now.
Sasha urges me to write something of the Anime Culture for publication. "Perfect subject matter for Harper's, Atlantic Monthly, or even the New Yorker. If it is done well enough" she says. The "utter bizarreness of the culture, the ritualistic costuming and emotional fragility is mesmerizing" I imagine many people look at Anime conventions like they look at accidents on the highway. They are glad it's not them but they find they can't look away. Grotesque and fascinating? The two have gone well together before. I think it's a perfect subject since it's not the art that is so enticing, but the appreciators. Don't be surprised if you find me at MetroCon with a notebook in hand, writing down sensory details and bits of passing dialog. When I was at the last Metrocon, I kept thinking of this wonderfully applicable quote from Hunter S. Thompson. "Bazooko's circus was what the entire world would be doing Saturday night if the Nazis had won the war. This was the Sixth Reich!" That is MetroCon in a Nutshell. And what often amazes me is that it doesn't require a single hallucinogenic.
Now my MetroCon and Anime friends. Don't mistake me and think I am trying to be insulting. I don the regalia as much as the next fan. But now and then we all should take a step back and look at just how out there it all gets from time to time. We are actors playing dress up in the theater of the absurd.
Sasha and I both had the worst Semesters of our lives. What was my struggle through out Feb/March/April is now her struggle in May. She lost both a grandmother and grandfather within 4 days of each other on different sides of the family and has dealt with numerous family issues. I don't envy her having to return in the fall. After this semester, I don't want anything more of school. Yet I lament what I've missed the opportunity to learn. I wanted fluency in a foreign language. I wanted to take costume construction and Metal workshops. Mostly, I wanted my enthusiasm for learning to be rekindled. I wanted all my loves back to carry in my eyes and my fingers. I think that will return with Time, as with all things. And the fortune of living so close to another university may entice me back into the student's chair. At least then I would learn Italian properly XD!
The days off have found me lounging in the sun with well-earned rest. I've been pouring over books of gardening and cooking. Nights, I am cleaning out boxes and throwing things away that haven't been used in years. My packrat ways won't last the summer. It's good to be rid of old things sometimes. Makes the anticipation of things to come all the more potent.
I am the baker in my house and I have accepted this. Long has my family communicated through food and the sweet side of tongue has always won out with me. I warn people who would visit me in Tampa that there will ever be culinary temptations.
At night I sew. I turn on Deadwood and listen to the low tones of victorian men in the fever of greed, plodding through mud and whores to get to their claims. The lines are subtle and extremely indirect, like listening to Shakespeare, but with a constant thread of "Fucking" and "cocksucker" woven into every sentence. It's gritty and poetic. It does my ear good and my mind better.
I promise, I will see Star Wars, but I reserve the right to give everyone a hard time about it. I'm a Lord of the Rings lady at the core and my heart will follow the better tale. Though I agree, it is not fair to hold comparison. But I suppose it simply comes down to the fact that Star Wars is reaching its zenith, and my wave crested and broke well over a year ago.
At the very least, I will always have my ill-fitting Nenya Ring. Thanks D.
Adieu Gulf Coast
Just another freak in the Freak Kingdom. We'd gone in search of the American Dream. It had been a lame fuck around, a waste of time. There was no point in looking back. Fuck no, not today thank you kindly. My heart was filled with joy. HST.
Another semi-sad day to report. It was my last official day as Business Manager for Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Art. Sasha and I blew the last hour of work talking and I told her of the strange impulse to drown myself after completing my last final. She said that I must be a writer since that is the kind of ending the modern heroine tends to give herself. The ultimate expression of liberation is the unpeeling from life. James Hall, our astrologically-brilliant Nonfiction editor has often cautioned me against the water. He said since I am a Scorpio, water will always call me back toward it. And that water had a particularly bad omen for me. Silvia Plath, born on my birthday, tried more than once to drown herself. I caution Amy, both a writer and child of October 27th against the water.
I have dreams of drowning often. And in them I can feel the rough feeling of salt water going down my wind pipe. I can feel the current churning in my lungs. It's never like a falling dream, where you wake up before you hit the ground. I hold my breath in my sleep and wake up coughing madly trying to expel sea water that is still in the bay. In March when I was so unhappy, I had frequent dreams of having some terminal disease that would leave me drowning in my own fluids, and being faced with having to tell people. I always awoke before I had to tell Derrick, as if to tell him I would soon be in the ground was the same as hitting it. I had completely forgotten all those dreams. The importance of it is lost now.
Sasha urges me to write something of the Anime Culture for publication. "Perfect subject matter for Harper's, Atlantic Monthly, or even the New Yorker. If it is done well enough" she says. The "utter bizarreness of the culture, the ritualistic costuming and emotional fragility is mesmerizing" I imagine many people look at Anime conventions like they look at accidents on the highway. They are glad it's not them but they find they can't look away. Grotesque and fascinating? The two have gone well together before. I think it's a perfect subject since it's not the art that is so enticing, but the appreciators. Don't be surprised if you find me at MetroCon with a notebook in hand, writing down sensory details and bits of passing dialog. When I was at the last Metrocon, I kept thinking of this wonderfully applicable quote from Hunter S. Thompson. "Bazooko's circus was what the entire world would be doing Saturday night if the Nazis had won the war. This was the Sixth Reich!" That is MetroCon in a Nutshell. And what often amazes me is that it doesn't require a single hallucinogenic.
Now my MetroCon and Anime friends. Don't mistake me and think I am trying to be insulting. I don the regalia as much as the next fan. But now and then we all should take a step back and look at just how out there it all gets from time to time. We are actors playing dress up in the theater of the absurd.
Sasha and I both had the worst Semesters of our lives. What was my struggle through out Feb/March/April is now her struggle in May. She lost both a grandmother and grandfather within 4 days of each other on different sides of the family and has dealt with numerous family issues. I don't envy her having to return in the fall. After this semester, I don't want anything more of school. Yet I lament what I've missed the opportunity to learn. I wanted fluency in a foreign language. I wanted to take costume construction and Metal workshops. Mostly, I wanted my enthusiasm for learning to be rekindled. I wanted all my loves back to carry in my eyes and my fingers. I think that will return with Time, as with all things. And the fortune of living so close to another university may entice me back into the student's chair. At least then I would learn Italian properly XD!
The days off have found me lounging in the sun with well-earned rest. I've been pouring over books of gardening and cooking. Nights, I am cleaning out boxes and throwing things away that haven't been used in years. My packrat ways won't last the summer. It's good to be rid of old things sometimes. Makes the anticipation of things to come all the more potent.
I am the baker in my house and I have accepted this. Long has my family communicated through food and the sweet side of tongue has always won out with me. I warn people who would visit me in Tampa that there will ever be culinary temptations.
At night I sew. I turn on Deadwood and listen to the low tones of victorian men in the fever of greed, plodding through mud and whores to get to their claims. The lines are subtle and extremely indirect, like listening to Shakespeare, but with a constant thread of "Fucking" and "cocksucker" woven into every sentence. It's gritty and poetic. It does my ear good and my mind better.
I promise, I will see Star Wars, but I reserve the right to give everyone a hard time about it. I'm a Lord of the Rings lady at the core and my heart will follow the better tale. Though I agree, it is not fair to hold comparison. But I suppose it simply comes down to the fact that Star Wars is reaching its zenith, and my wave crested and broke well over a year ago.
At the very least, I will always have my ill-fitting Nenya Ring. Thanks D.
Adieu Gulf Coast
Just another freak in the Freak Kingdom. We'd gone in search of the American Dream. It had been a lame fuck around, a waste of time. There was no point in looking back. Fuck no, not today thank you kindly. My heart was filled with joy. HST.