| oh, i could explode. |
[26 Dec 2009|02:10am] |
clarity's a bitch. it was right in front of me. the best and the worst feelings, all in one. i'm not ready for society.
thanks to my own fear and lack of self-confidence.
i really feel like i stopped being one person in september and became another afterwards. the old me wrote more. the new me feels better. i need to have them meet.
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| With little, still grateful. |
[25 Dec 2009|08:25pm] |
I received no gifts today and only three overall: my father presented me with a $10 giftcard to Borders (he knows me so well), and ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) netmouse and sarahmichigan both sent me books of stamps (hooray!).
The only person I gave anything to was lameautarch: I treated him to an opening-weekend showing of Avatar at the local IMAX theater. (The ticket prices were well worth the effects; however, we should have eaten beforehand instead of paying through the absolute nose for snacks.)
Last night, he took me to spend Christmas Eve with his extended family. Nice (if sometimes silly) conversation, lovely food, good company.
I am thankful for my family and friends. Without their support and love, I don't know where I would be. I thank every one of you for being in my life.
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[25 Dec 2009|04:15pm] |
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Merry Christmas, everyone.
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| And the reindeer, of course. |
[23 Dec 2009|06:57pm] |
I'd shared with my friend Geanette that I'd figured it out, how it was that Santa was at hundreds of malls at the same time. How he could deliver so many gifts all over the world in such short time.
He's been cloned.
That's why, when you go to different malls, he looks different: it's a copy of a copy. We all know what happens when you xerox something so many times.
The Santas don't last long, either. That's probably by design, though. Very short shelf-life.
What would the DNA of Santa be worth?
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| At Thirty, by Lynda Hull |
[22 Dec 2009|06:18pm] |
At Thirty
Whole years I knew only nights: automats
& damp streets, the Lower East Side steep
with narrow rooms where sleepers turn beneath
alien skies. I ran when doorways spoke
rife with smoke & zippers. But it was only the heart's
racketing flywheel stuttering I want, I want
until exhaustion, until I was a guest in the yoke
of my body by the last margin of land where the river
mingles with the sea & far off daylight whitens,
a rending & yielding I must kneel before, as
barges loose glittering mineral freight
& behind me façades gleam with pigeons
folding iridescent wings. Their voices echo
in my voice naming what is lost, what remains.
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[21 Dec 2009|01:50pm] |
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Happy Solstice, everyone.
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| Christmas came early |
[19 Dec 2009|10:29am] |
The library had its "free book" cart out yesterday, pretty much chock full. I immediately spotted two titles I would adore: Norton Anthology of American Literature, Vol. 1, 3rd Ed. and Oxford Anthology of English Literature (I can't recall at the moment its volume or edition, but it deals with the period from Chaucer to the Victorian era).
I'd picked up the second volume of the Norton while at college (as I'd focused on American history after Reconstruction), but with a new interest in views of the contemporaries of slavery, I'm so glad to have this literary record. Also, I now have a fair cross-section of the work of my favorite sonneteer, Edmund Spenser. Yay!
(Earlier this week I found there the treasure of H. L. Mencken's The American Language, a trace of the evolution of English on these shores. Wh00p!)
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| velvet racism |
[18 Dec 2009|03:06pm] |
I had an appointment this morning. I hadn't been able to do laundry all week, so I was forced to wear interview clothes, which is not entirely inappropriate. I chose a royal blue velveteen suit that netmouse had given me this fall, accented with a variegated blue bracelet she'd also given me this past winter; after fretting, I decided to put on my knee-high black leather boots. Several people complimented me on how nice I looked this morning, including one of the bus drivers as I waited for my line. The one thing that displeased me was that I couldn't find a pair of earrings in time that would have completed the look.
Appointment over, I headed over to Meijer to grab lunch components as well as items for future projects. ( I considered my outfit, though, as well as my feet. )
My right boot had suffered a loss of part of its heel (its cap?) over a year ago, so I thought I'd stroll through the shoe section. ( The clerk eventually found me and was quite personable. )
I remembered my earring desire, which I decided to indulge precisely because as a rule I don't buy jewelry anymore. (It's an expense I just can't afford on a regular basis.) I saw that several sections of the non-precious metal items were on sale, so that heartened me. I went to the clearance tower and tried to find a match for the bracelet.
( more detailed nondescription )
Around the time I discovered this earring, the clerk for the department came from behind her counter to busy herself at the same kiosk where I stood, only directly opposite me so that the structure stood between us. ( You can probably predict the subsequent disappointing details. )
Does this strike the average American as profiling? Probably not. But something similar has happened to me so many times over the course of my life that I know it when it occurs.
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| Rx syncronicity |
[18 Dec 2009|02:14pm] |
It appears that one of my medications, propranolol (a beta-blocker), is quite popular these days, for wildly different reasons.
Imagine my shock one night, watching The Rachael Maddow Show, to see propranolol implicated as the means by which Ramin Pourandarjani, a 26-year-old Iranian doctor who acted as a whistleblower on Iranian torture, was poisoned. In his salad, no less. (Check the transcript to see how many distinct manners of death were attributed to this doctor by the Iranian government.)
Today, in the library, I read "The Tireless Soldier," an article in a back issue of Adbusters (May/June 2008), wherein Clayton Dach states that the US military may soon use the med to counteract PTSD before it even starts:
Chief among the new horizons is the alluring notion of psychological prophylactics: drugs used to preempt the often nasty effects of combat stress on soldiers, particularly that perennial veteran's bugaboo known as post-traumatic stress disorder syndrome. ( Read more... ) Ongoing psychiatric research has intriguingly suggested that a dose of propranolol, taken soon after a harrowing event, can suppress the victim's stress response and effectively block the physiological process that makes certain memories intense and intrusive. That the drug is cheap and well tolerated is icing on the cake. ( Read more... )
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| One-Sixth |
[17 Dec 2009|07:41pm] |
Wire mesh of chair the lattice
of my back, I sit half-akimbo, whisking
fluid through each chamber, water
a tip's percentage of its weight. No
thought required: intention, the mother
of coal-unburnt soles, might meddle
and cause the works to stall. Thank
the autonomic, the parasympathetic.
Iron, catalytic, impels the paralyzed
to stomp again, to shock into motion.
At times, transactions are promises
pressed palm to palm, secrets
unculled from time: ancient pacts
unparalleled, unperishable,
until entropy intervenes. The end,
inevitable, will curl the cells, divert
the honorable air. A tip
of the temporal, awaiting blush
and flow, will shrink to a lattice
of coppered cords, then drink itself.
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| Ack! |
[17 Dec 2009|07:33pm] |
I wrote an entire poem on MS Word, something I rarely do, because I felt the bite of the poetry bug. It's important that I sense this bite, as it occurs rarely these days.
I'd just put on the finishing touches. I copied it to the clipboard, then pressed the window button for Firefox. Both windows minimized, then wouldn't open. Yes, I'm at the library.
The desk attendant moved me to an adjacent machine and, after I gave all indications that I didn't want the machine shut down, said they would work on retrieving the document, if possible.
This reminds me that I really should stick to my normal manner of producing poems: writing them longhand.
Update: The IT folks were able to retrieve the data and print the document. Yay! Still, I think I will take this as a cautionary tale.
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| overscheduled much? |
[17 Dec 2009|05:19pm] |
By the end of this month, I will have had thirty-one appointments. This does not count what my family will do for Christmas or whether I will spend time with my parents during their anniversary on New Year's Eve. (Heck, I don't even know if I'm attending a party that evening.)
January is crazily blank, so far.
How are your schedules shaping up for the end of the year and beyond?
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| random |
[16 Dec 2009|06:03pm] |
lameautarch has invited me to enjoy his family's holiday traditions. I'll accompany him to his uncle's place on Christmas Eve. (I asked him if I needed to bring anything, like a white elephant gift. He didn't know what one of those was.)
Today, the library offered several rows of free books. Lucky me: I picked up The Thyroid Solution by Ridha Arem, M.D. (I also snagged a handful of others--I have a huge soft spot for the printed word. Most of the belongings that I tote from move to move are boxes of books.)
I feel fairly good (which is an improvement from my baseline of the last month). This elation has nothing to do with the holidays.
I would like to note, speaking of holidays, that there will be a blue moon on New Year's Eve. Lunatics rejoice!
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[16 Dec 2009|12:25am] |
because procrastination has reached an all time high, and my grad app is due in 2.5 hours
last time one was due i was playing this marble game till 20 minutes before the application closed.
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