Poetry,

Such an arduous task some days. Feeling out of my depth I drown my feelings of inadequacy in the foam of my caramel macchiato, stare out the window and let my mind wander.

The sun sets among a canopy of yellow-brown leaves; making me wish I had a better vocabulary for color as “yellow-brown” does little to denote the excellent dichotomy of their vibrant death. The inaccurate, cliché comparison would be to that of a soldier, dying valiantly on the battlefield. But the very idea of it is so absurd it almost makes me laugh. These leaves feel no pain, nor do they knowingly give their lives in an effort to improve the world they leave behind. No, their lives are short and predetermined and in the end there is little more glory to them than to the mayfly that lives just long enough to eat, mate and die. Perhaps mayflies would garner more respect if they went out in blazes of yellow-brown glory.

Hail Mary

Ten days of waiting and finally

Bright red salvation hath found me.

Like a Rorschach test on cotton.
The beauty of bodily destruction.

Oh, blessed ache of empty space.

There’s nothing here but me.

For today,

Sa petite mort n’a pas produite

à ma petite vie.[1]

---

[1] Translation: His little death did not lead to my little life.

 

Things I’m Digging.

Gardening Puns
~When I can no longer simply rake it in I’m forced to go out and work my hoes.

Being one step closer to paying my rent next quarter.

~Come on Sophia’s, you know you can’t help but want me despite my utter lack of previous job experience.

The label on the bag full of free condoms in the upstairs bathroom:

~“Spread the love, not the clap.”

Short hair

~And the three minutes I save by not having to put it up before dance every other day.

Blogging in Spanish

~¡Inés, Aquí En Español!

The fact that my blog still apparently gets hits on things I wrote two years ago

~Link 50 Reasons to be Emo

Today has been …strange.

I’m a creature of habit. I take comfort in, and derive direction from, a sense of normality. As such, missing my first class of the morning in favor of a wild goose chase for apparently miswritten office hours resulting in my finishing a strange Chuck Klosterman novel about an absurdly amoral man who smokes an awful lot of PCP is…odd. It puts me in a weird head space. And, because of this, I will continue to view my day as strange, surreal, even. Maybe I will take an upper division Russian class next quarter.

Things I have done today that aren’t studying:

1)      Sleep until 11:45

2)      Read Post Secret

3)      Play in the leaves outside my dorm

4)      Make mochas

5)      Steal from the dinning commons

6)      Search for the perfect pair of gnome socks

7)      Listen to weekly rap updates

8)      Reread Sugar’s blog

This is getting to be a problem.

So Far…

College is…trade offs. It’s more freedom with less stability. The opportunity to eat S’mores Poptarts, unhindered by anything but my slightly pretentious ethics teacher, but no place to toast them properly. It’s a growing number of quiet places to study coupled with a diminishing expectation of peace in my own room.

And paradoxes… A longing for familiarity on my quest for adventure. Avoiding the social scene because I’m too busy e-mailing. Studying for hours and feeling behind.

I think it’s more exciting than I’ve made it out to be though. Yesterday, I played accomplice to a tree climbing adventure, read about “coffee shops” (drug dens) in the Netherlands, climbed to the top floor of the library and attempted to pick the lock leading to the roof, then resorted to playing tag amongst the book shelves and reading My Life Is Average when the lock picking proved fruitless, tried pumpkin cheesecake ice cream before dinner, attended the latest showing of “Whip It” and was the last person to leave the theater as it closed.

On an unrelated note: I just discovered a Bryan Knouse through a friend of a friend on Facebook. I realize Knouse is not an entirely uncommon surname but I still feel like I should know him.

Babysitting. My Life Is Average.

Today, I babysat a girl who is usually quite rude. She was not rude today. I did not spit in her milk.

Today, I babysat a five year old who sharted. I do not get paid enough for this.

Saturday, a six year old gave me a bead necklace she had made. It matched my dress. I’m wearing it now.

A week ago, I was forced to chase a 220 pound Labrador through my neighborhood. She entered my next door neighbor’s house and when I followed her I found my attractive, 20 something, firefighting neighbor, shirtless. He did not attempt to stop the dog.

A Stunning Blow to My Impetus

It appeared at 2 a.m. this morning, blatantly announcing its presence and positively buzzing with the awareness that I was helpless to defeat it. I looked at it and it looked back knowingly. I sighed and accepted defeat moments before it delivered the crushing blow I had seen coming all along.

It’s funny, you can never fully appreciate just how much the stomach flu or a migraine will truly pain you until you’re in the midst of it. You may look on at other sufferers and recall your struggles for a moment, certain, at the very least, that you’re glad you’re not them right now but you can’t truly appreciate the moment of solace you pray for in the simple act of vomiting, something you can hardly wait for while you desperately try to avoid it.

This was no different really. I had forgotten how hard it could strike; the debilitating nature of the blow; as incurable as the common cold and twice as miserable. The name may change over time, but the symptoms are the same. Then it was “Sophomore Slump” , now it’s “Senioritis”. But I really don’t care what it’s called. In fact, giving it a name feels like giving it a right to exist.

So, at two in the morning I went to bed; not because I was tired, or too dizzy to think. I went to bed because I was done. I crawled under my sheets ready to let the sting of failure comfort me like emptying the rotten contents of my stomach had before. Painful and liberating.

Sigh

I promised to post, and, well, I suppose I do have something to say, but it’s a little… angsty. I apologize.

So, this weekend was the MarMonte Speech League’s state qualifying tournament. I spent last week preparing for this so as to make up for last weekend’s bitter (and still somewhat contested) debate loss.  But alas, said preparation seems to have been for not as not only did I not qualify, but two of the people who did argued that the voting day could not be changed because people would not feel as proud of themselves for voting on a Monday as they do when they vote on the traditional Tuesday.  And, to add insult to injury, the debate winners are somewhat disappointed they made it because that might require that they miss prom.

I’m a little annoyed at my angst in all of this though.  Yes, I like being told that I am a good speaker, but beyond that, I like knowing that I am a good person. The person I want to be would take this in better stride, as the Shins put it “A stronger girl would shake this off in flight, /And never give it more than a frowning hour, /But you have let your heart decide,/ Loss has conquered you”.  And, since I’m feeling quotey today, I will also submit that Elizabeth Bishop was wrong: The art of losing is hard to master (and I can’t even claim the loss of two of my lovers).  I suppose I’m just out of practice. I remember beaming at the sight of my two finalist medals as a freshman. This year’s set only seem to serve as a reminder that I didn’t win.

Hello there, it’s been a while.

It has recently been brought to my attention that I haven’t blogged for almost four months. What’s astounding to me is that my blog stats still show a consistent one to three people checking my blog daily. I apologize to those whom I have evidently disappointed for so long (Michael), and can offer only my sincere promise to try to do better. I think I worry that posting too often about trivial things will make people less inclined to read my blogs, but on the other hand I suppose that to some extent that is what a personal blog is for, and that I’m more likely to lose readers by never posting than by posting too often. So, I present this to the few and the faithful as a sort of promise to “fake it ‘till I make it”, posting random things until I get the hang of this again and come up with something exciting to say.