"For most of history, Anonymous was a woman." Virginia Woolf

Thursday, May 26, 2005

On a happier note

Not mine, but I like it... May I find such inspiration.

"I do not love you"~Paul Neruda

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

that this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

And the blog on the bus went round and round...

Bad Fucking Luck
Poor him/her.

Ok, so as I'm sure everyone is excited to hear, I am done with my take home test. It's been exciting. You can tell, 'cause I'm blogging (fucking addict).

I want to go to the gym. A odd thing for me to say, if you knew me three months ago. But really, I do. It'd be nice to do yoga for an hour or lift weights or do something other than type. But I am here, in the library, typing. Doing homework, putting off homework, and about to tell the lady in the Honor's college I didn't make a poster for tonight.

Last year around this time I was less than a month from taking off on a 10 week adventure, away from everything and everyone I knew. I was hurried and excited and anxious. Today I wondered to myself if I wanted another grand adventure. I reminded myself I would be moving in two months, and that would be adventure enough. I don't really want to go off to some grand ole place for a long time, or if part of me does, I wish I could just send that part off.

I need to get rid of clutter. Inside my head and inside my apartment. Just go through and start trashing things, because I won't have room for them much longer. My head's running slower than normal becaue my harddrive is almost full and my RAM is almost completely used up just running basic processes.

In some ways my life has been less dramatic than normal. No one has been arrested in the last 10 days, and I have been more or less out of touch with all the usual stuff. I know I create it sometimes for myself, and I've been working on stopping those thoughts. Doubts where it isn't rational, but seem to find their ways in, get caught fairly quickly. I am my own worst enemy and have a tendency to step on my own feet. Well, let's not do that anymore, alright?

I need to have more faith in people, but quietly, so that my faith in them does not intimidate or cause undue stress. I've been listening to my instincts more, but maybe I added a little information today that will help sort out those impulses.

I need much less attention that I get, but it's addictive, much like this blogging. I need to cut back. How about reading a book that has nothing to do with school and everything to do with my own interests. Let's try that.

Everything I want to do doesn't have to be done right now. The opportunities I have missed will not be how I define my life. When is the right time? I've never been a patient person. I'm not busy enough, despite all the things I have to get done. I should volunteer more often or read more. Decide to learn something and go for it. The only time is right now, because if it's later, it will never happen. In some cases, in others I wait. But I cannot wait, because I am not a static being.

So get done fucking talking about it, because right now I have to run.

Thursday, May 12, 2005

Almost got it down

I'm graduating tomorrow. That in and of itself isn't a big deal. I earned it, damn straight, but it may not be as much a defining moment as the choices I make in the near future might be. I've fufilled all the promises I've made my parents, all the bargains I've struck with them.

I have a pretty good habit of changing my life in a major way every four years. Four years ago, I graduated high school, four years before that I made a decision to live my life my way and to hell with everyone else. Four years before that, I moved from Chicago to Southlake- a move that pretty much marked the crumbling of childhood innocence. Four years prior to the move, I started school. So at age 22, I'm at a watershed. I kind'a think something big's going to happen. And not just moving to Mobile; moving isn't such a big deal, it's almost second nature. And this isn't an expectation. I'm not going to throw myself in front for the first 18-wheeler and hang on for dear life. But there's nothing that will surprise me in the next three months. There's just a certain feeling when you walk outside and the breeze is going and there's just a certain smell in the air, of the air. It's got a frenzied quality to it.

It struck me every day
The lightning was as new
As if the cloud that instant slit
And let the fire through.

It burned me in the night,
It blistered in my dream;
It sickened fresh upon my sight
With every morning’s beam.

I thought that storm was brief,—
The maddest, quickest by;
But Nature lost the date of this,
And left it in the sky. ~Emily Dickinson

Saturday, May 7, 2005

Fair Weather-Dorothy Parker



This level reach of blue is not my sea;
Here are sweet waters, pretty in the sun,
Whose quiet ripples meet obediently
A marked and measured line, one after one.
This is no sea of mine, that humbly laves
Untroubled sands, spread glittering and warm.
I have a need of wilder, crueler waves;
They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm.

So let a love beat over me again,
Loosing its million desperate breakers wide;
Sudden and terrible to rise and wane;
Roaring the heavens apart; a reckless tide
That casts upon the heart, as it recedes,
Splinters and spars and dripping, salty weeds.

Friday, May 6, 2005

Song of One of the Girls by Dorothy Parker

Here in my heart I am Helen;
I'm Aspasia and Hero, at least.
I'm Judith, and Jael, and Madame de Stael;
I'm Salome, moon of the East.

Here in my soul I am Sappho;
Lady Hamilton am I, as well.
In me Recamier vies with Kitty O'Shea,
With Dido, and Eve, and poor Nell.

I'm of the glamorous ladies
At whose beckoning history shook.
But you are a man, and see only my pan,
So I stay at home with a book.


Damn, I love her. Bring back Dorothy Parker and we'll call it even stephen.

Also, in the life of poetry

Ah, the power of a hopeless love. Good for poetry, not always for waistlines.

She, my friend, was in love with a Catholic priest. "Passionately attached" is what, I believe, she called it. Alas, he didn't leave the priesthood and she went on to have... eight children? She was, later in life, a suffragist, and fought "to obtain the vote for women on the same terms as it is or may be granted to men. Its methods are those proper to writers - the use of the pen." Not quite as good as my favorite quote by Frances Griffin, who was known for verbally smacking unprogressive men upside the head, but still satisfying.

Renouncement
By Alice Meynell

I must not think of thee; and, tired yet strong,
I shun the thought that lurks in all delight -
The thought of thee--and in the blue Heaven's height,
And in the sweetest passage of a song.

Oh, just beyond the fairest thoughts that throng
This breast, the thought of thee waits, hidden yet bright;
But it must never, never come in sight;
I must stop short of thee the whole day long.

But when sleep comes to close each difficult day,
When night gives pause to the long watch I keep,
And all my bonds I needs must loose apart,
Must doff my will as raiment laid away, -
With the first dream that comes with the first sleep
I run, I run, I am gathered to thy heart.