Taos update, lengthy
Friday, July 29th, 2005 03:00 AM
-politics 'n' me
(hemp store purchases, too)
-"you never write about your theatre stuff"
-body choir
(dred boy and his mother and the whirling dervish man)
-the CLIFF
Friday, July 29th, 2005 02:05 PM
I just finished packing most of my stuff, and we're about to go to the restaurant where James works to have lunch. After lunch, I have to dry the clothes in the washer right now (an entire, albeit small because I've only got a little over a week's worth of clothes packed, load of pink...and only pink clothing) then pack them up. I have to leave Juli's house no later than four in the afternoon to get to Taos before six. I'd rather leave closer to three so I have some time to get my shit into my room before I have to go to dinner and meetings and such.
I'm really excited, but still nervous. I'm more excited than nervous, though, and I think it's because I've spent some time in New Mexico now, so I'm less afraid of the climate and the "different-ness" of it than I was before I came here and navigated it a bit.
Also, New Mexico makes me feel really...political. I wrote that reminder entry last night, and I'll talk about this political thing more later, when I'm not 24 minutes from a dinner reservation. :)
Speaking of that, I should go so Juli can run by the bank to get money. Some of which she owes me! Isn't getting money exciting, even when it's just replacing money you already spent? Does that make me materialistic? Hm.
Saturday, July 30th, 2005 01:55 PM
me: These two guys in the lab. Oh, God.
me: Shelley, the only bad thing is--I'm surrounded by Republicans. Fucking fratties.
me: **shudder**
me: They are over here looking up virtual baseball stats and READING OFF BUSH'S PHYSICAL RESULTS and saying how glad they are that he's healthy and fit to run the country.
me: KILL MEEEEE
Sunday, July 31st, 2005 08:06 PM
Wow wow wow wow.
I have found a physical activity I love. River rafting. Holy ass.
I also climbed up a cliff!!
So cool. I'm moving. That's all there is to it. But is there a grad school in the area?
Friday, August 5th, 2005 10:54 AM
I need to write about "the artist."
And I need to talk about a lot of stuff that I wrote in my handwritten journal a couple of days ago (23 pages' worth).
Read The Song of the Lark.
Tuesday, August 9th, 2005 06:10 PM
The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago, 1979
I just learned about this today in class, though I have a sneaking, back-of-the-brain, tip-of-the-tongue feeling that I have actually heard about it before. Also, a quote (by whom, I did not hear) I heard on a video in class today: "Most families are tragedies for ambitious women."
Eeyup. Let's shed a tear for our full-to-bursting or vacant wombs, shall we?
If the universe had a plan (which it doesn't, I aver), both sexes would be able to give birth, or we'd at least switch every few hundred years. But the universe doesn't have a plan; it just has what we give to it.
(You didn't ever think I'd go even almost-spiritual on you, did you? Well, I think it's going to happen a lot more lately, if I say what I've been thinking.)
[So here's what I've been thinking. No, there is no God. But there are souls or consciouses or something that I don't yet know the name for (as I have always believed, in my good little Transcendentalist heart, the Thoreau-humper that I would love to be). And there is the universe. And there are ripples, from soul to soul, through the air/atmosphere/universal consciousness. And that's the way the world changes and moves; it's the way we move each other. I have yet to figure out, in my little, little (big) brain how synchronicity/not-quite-coincidence plays into this, but I know it does. I just don't think it's "God." I think it's us.]
I have been writing a lot in my paper journal, and it's becoming a dear friend. It used to be an antagonist or just a neutral bystander (though what neutral bystander would let me ink its innards to death?), but now we are companions. I have begun to think that I should have made this conscious effort to be a writer (in whatever sense) a long time ago.
Well, if I do not run now, there will be no tamales for me in the cafeteria and that would be a tragedy. I'll be back, but probably not until Thursday.
And I will write!
And the universe--such as it is--will ripple...just that much.
Wednesday, August 10th, 2005 09:20 PM
I finally turned off the frigid air-conditioning, in order to get comfortable, and now I have to pee again. Is there no rest for the infirm and sensitive!
i'm the funniest woman that you've ever known
i am the dullest woman that you've ever known
i'm the most gorgeous woman that you've ever known
and you've never met anyone
as everything as i am sometimes
For a while I was incredibly annoyed with Alanis. I feel she's sold out. I feel she's made poor choies in the last five years (i.e., filling Under Rug Swept with songs like "Precious Illusions" and "Surrendering"--which are good, but largely average songs--and placing songs like "Sorry to Myself" and "Sister Blister" on the B-sides album, where only certain fans, who also want her concert DVD, will ever find them). But here's the thing...even in her average stuff, she still says what I think or feel. I may not agree she set it to the best music or that she even chose quite the right rhythm, words, whatever... But to feel that someone out there knows. I even want to write to her sometimes; I almost believe she would feel the same way if she read my words. Of course I know it's probably ridiculous. But I do have a place in my head where I store the "when I'm famous, I'll do X to meet Alanis" fantasies. That don't really feel like fantasies.
I just want to know if we really do have what always feel like same thoughts.
I went to Santa Fe for the day. I started by sitting outside the O'Keeffe Cafe and eating the bagel-with-cream-cheese-and-strawberry-jelly I packed, knowing my stomach would need it, with the Cipro. It was beautiful. There was a tree (as a writer, you are supposed to give details--"there was an elm"--but I don't know a goddamned thing about trees) with these long, thick, stretching branches and dew-drop leaves fluttering, and I looked into them and saw the light turn them into gold coins, and I thought, 'Cream cheese is good,' and I giggled at myself, even when the old people a table away stared at me over their clip-on sunglasses.
I ended by listening to "Everything" in my car and then going to eat sushi and mochi ice cream by myself and writing in my khaki journal about Georgia O'Keeffe.
And somewhere in the middle, I bought a silver bracelet with bears on it from a Navajo woman who prefers you pay in cash, and I had several enlightening conversations with Natives, cute barristos and barristas, and just a few randoms. And I bought some books.
On a day like that, you don't stop smiling, even when they get your order wrong and you are light-headed.
You just don't.
Thursday, August 11th, 2005 05:41 PM
The thought has crossed my mind far more than once of finding a particularly spiritually striking peak, going up with a bottle of water and my journal, setting fire to the journal, saying I'm sorry to the vibrating-souled air, and jumping off, arms spread, still afraid.
These are, apparently, the thoughts you have when you are in pain, or ill, or just plain physically uncomfortable for weeks on end.
When each part of your gastrointestinal tract feels as though it is ripping from every other part by your very seams.
When you leave the shower, drenched and still soapy, to shiver before the toilet and expel what isn't really in your stomach in the first place.
When you run through every bad decision you may have made over the years that might be the antecedent for the spastic bladder, the clogged sinuses, the throbbing knuckles, the overextended and sore-to-the-bone tendons. The bad eyesight, the weakened muscles, the always-chapped lips.
When you look forward, and all you can think is, 'There will be more of this, won't there? There will be this pain and this pain, and then, at some point, more of a different kind of pain you haven't yet seen. There will be more of this, won't there?'
And when the only answers you can give yourself are: 'Yes,' and 'But there doesn't have to be.'
That's when you think the way I have been thinking.
-politics 'n' me
(hemp store purchases, too)
-"you never write about your theatre stuff"
-body choir
(dred boy and his mother and the whirling dervish man)
-the CLIFF
Friday, July 29th, 2005 02:05 PM
I just finished packing most of my stuff, and we're about to go to the restaurant where James works to have lunch. After lunch, I have to dry the clothes in the washer right now (an entire, albeit small because I've only got a little over a week's worth of clothes packed, load of pink...and only pink clothing) then pack them up. I have to leave Juli's house no later than four in the afternoon to get to Taos before six. I'd rather leave closer to three so I have some time to get my shit into my room before I have to go to dinner and meetings and such.
I'm really excited, but still nervous. I'm more excited than nervous, though, and I think it's because I've spent some time in New Mexico now, so I'm less afraid of the climate and the "different-ness" of it than I was before I came here and navigated it a bit.
Also, New Mexico makes me feel really...political. I wrote that reminder entry last night, and I'll talk about this political thing more later, when I'm not 24 minutes from a dinner reservation. :)
Speaking of that, I should go so Juli can run by the bank to get money. Some of which she owes me! Isn't getting money exciting, even when it's just replacing money you already spent? Does that make me materialistic? Hm.
Saturday, July 30th, 2005 01:55 PM
me: These two guys in the lab. Oh, God.
me: Shelley, the only bad thing is--I'm surrounded by Republicans. Fucking fratties.
me: **shudder**
me: They are over here looking up virtual baseball stats and READING OFF BUSH'S PHYSICAL RESULTS and saying how glad they are that he's healthy and fit to run the country.
me: KILL MEEEEE
Sunday, July 31st, 2005 08:06 PM
Wow wow wow wow.
I have found a physical activity I love. River rafting. Holy ass.
I also climbed up a cliff!!
So cool. I'm moving. That's all there is to it. But is there a grad school in the area?
Friday, August 5th, 2005 10:54 AM
I need to write about "the artist."
And I need to talk about a lot of stuff that I wrote in my handwritten journal a couple of days ago (23 pages' worth).
Read The Song of the Lark.
Tuesday, August 9th, 2005 06:10 PM
The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago, 1979
I just learned about this today in class, though I have a sneaking, back-of-the-brain, tip-of-the-tongue feeling that I have actually heard about it before. Also, a quote (by whom, I did not hear) I heard on a video in class today: "Most families are tragedies for ambitious women."
Eeyup. Let's shed a tear for our full-to-bursting or vacant wombs, shall we?
If the universe had a plan (which it doesn't, I aver), both sexes would be able to give birth, or we'd at least switch every few hundred years. But the universe doesn't have a plan; it just has what we give to it.
(You didn't ever think I'd go even almost-spiritual on you, did you? Well, I think it's going to happen a lot more lately, if I say what I've been thinking.)
[So here's what I've been thinking. No, there is no God. But there are souls or consciouses or something that I don't yet know the name for (as I have always believed, in my good little Transcendentalist heart, the Thoreau-humper that I would love to be). And there is the universe. And there are ripples, from soul to soul, through the air/atmosphere/universal consciousness. And that's the way the world changes and moves; it's the way we move each other. I have yet to figure out, in my little, little (big) brain how synchronicity/not-quite-coincidence plays into this, but I know it does. I just don't think it's "God." I think it's us.]
I have been writing a lot in my paper journal, and it's becoming a dear friend. It used to be an antagonist or just a neutral bystander (though what neutral bystander would let me ink its innards to death?), but now we are companions. I have begun to think that I should have made this conscious effort to be a writer (in whatever sense) a long time ago.
Well, if I do not run now, there will be no tamales for me in the cafeteria and that would be a tragedy. I'll be back, but probably not until Thursday.
And I will write!
And the universe--such as it is--will ripple...just that much.
Wednesday, August 10th, 2005 09:20 PM
I finally turned off the frigid air-conditioning, in order to get comfortable, and now I have to pee again. Is there no rest for the infirm and sensitive!
i'm the funniest woman that you've ever known
i am the dullest woman that you've ever known
i'm the most gorgeous woman that you've ever known
and you've never met anyone
as everything as i am sometimes
For a while I was incredibly annoyed with Alanis. I feel she's sold out. I feel she's made poor choies in the last five years (i.e., filling Under Rug Swept with songs like "Precious Illusions" and "Surrendering"--which are good, but largely average songs--and placing songs like "Sorry to Myself" and "Sister Blister" on the B-sides album, where only certain fans, who also want her concert DVD, will ever find them). But here's the thing...even in her average stuff, she still says what I think or feel. I may not agree she set it to the best music or that she even chose quite the right rhythm, words, whatever... But to feel that someone out there knows. I even want to write to her sometimes; I almost believe she would feel the same way if she read my words. Of course I know it's probably ridiculous. But I do have a place in my head where I store the "when I'm famous, I'll do X to meet Alanis" fantasies. That don't really feel like fantasies.
I just want to know if we really do have what always feel like same thoughts.
I went to Santa Fe for the day. I started by sitting outside the O'Keeffe Cafe and eating the bagel-with-cream-cheese-and-strawberry-jelly I packed, knowing my stomach would need it, with the Cipro. It was beautiful. There was a tree (as a writer, you are supposed to give details--"there was an elm"--but I don't know a goddamned thing about trees) with these long, thick, stretching branches and dew-drop leaves fluttering, and I looked into them and saw the light turn them into gold coins, and I thought, 'Cream cheese is good,' and I giggled at myself, even when the old people a table away stared at me over their clip-on sunglasses.
I ended by listening to "Everything" in my car and then going to eat sushi and mochi ice cream by myself and writing in my khaki journal about Georgia O'Keeffe.
And somewhere in the middle, I bought a silver bracelet with bears on it from a Navajo woman who prefers you pay in cash, and I had several enlightening conversations with Natives, cute barristos and barristas, and just a few randoms. And I bought some books.
On a day like that, you don't stop smiling, even when they get your order wrong and you are light-headed.
You just don't.
Thursday, August 11th, 2005 05:41 PM
The thought has crossed my mind far more than once of finding a particularly spiritually striking peak, going up with a bottle of water and my journal, setting fire to the journal, saying I'm sorry to the vibrating-souled air, and jumping off, arms spread, still afraid.
These are, apparently, the thoughts you have when you are in pain, or ill, or just plain physically uncomfortable for weeks on end.
When each part of your gastrointestinal tract feels as though it is ripping from every other part by your very seams.
When you leave the shower, drenched and still soapy, to shiver before the toilet and expel what isn't really in your stomach in the first place.
When you run through every bad decision you may have made over the years that might be the antecedent for the spastic bladder, the clogged sinuses, the throbbing knuckles, the overextended and sore-to-the-bone tendons. The bad eyesight, the weakened muscles, the always-chapped lips.
When you look forward, and all you can think is, 'There will be more of this, won't there? There will be this pain and this pain, and then, at some point, more of a different kind of pain you haven't yet seen. There will be more of this, won't there?'
And when the only answers you can give yourself are: 'Yes,' and 'But there doesn't have to be.'
That's when you think the way I have been thinking.