It turns out I can focus on things if I make myself read them out loud to myself! This is progress, for sure. I feel all satisfied and shit right now.

Heaven knows I'm miserable now.

But I do not know why. The short days and the fact that I sleep til noon? That probably has a hand in it.
Tonight I definitely have spent a lot of time feeling like it was time to cry, even though it was not. Then it would go away for a little, and then come back. I do not have any concrete reason to be unhappy at right this minute, and yet!
Maybe I'm less happy when I'm cold? Right now I am definitely also cold, even though I am inside, wearing a sweatshirt, and sitting on my feet.
I'm not sure what's going on, because I spent two hours today talking with a friend over coffee, and then had a surprise phone call from another friend who spent some time laughing at funny things I said. I thought more social interaction is what I needed to keep the sads away, but that does not appear to be the case.

So today, I did some sit-ups, and then I read most of the wikipedia entry on major depressive disorder. To see if there were some things in there that I hadn't already heard about. Now, I am thinking about T3 (a drug for those with hypothyroidism that also helps with depression, as well as part of the Terminator franchise of movies), atypical anti-psychotics, and light therapy. All things I can bring up with my doctor this week I suppose! Or maybe we can just sit down and talk about the Terminator franchise instead, for a refreshing change of pace.

Maybe my doctor will give me one of those little headsets that shines light into your eyes. I saw someone wearing one of those on an episode of "Northern Exposure", during my childhood.

Anyway, I'm pretty depressed right now! It's too bad, because I'd really prefer to be a whole range of other emotions. So, now you know that.

Meeting people is easy.

In unfortunate news, I may very well go on three first dates this week. I have already gone on one, which at least went "okay". I do not know if it went any better than okay, because I am an awkward beast and not particularly great at reading strangers. I can say that it wasn't a failure in that my jokes were often laughed at, and at the end of the evening my date and I were on decent enough terms to say that we'd had a good time and to hug. So, you know, I can at least say that no one was repulsed by me last night. Hooray!

Now I have to play the "will there or will there not be a second date" game with that one. I would rather vomit for the next hour straight than wonder whether or not someone's going to call. I was not made to play the "girl" role in these sorts of scenarios. I don't even know if that's still appealing or not, to play aloof, to be the girl who only responds to every other text someone sends her. Certainly there are a lot of people who believe in playing games with availability, dating multiple people at once, hedging their bets. I probably should figure out how to add a little of that into my life, because I generally want to jump into getting to know someone with both feet. I like the freedom to be enthusiastic about another person, but in the wrong context that can come across as annoying, or even creepy. I do not want to be that kind of lady either.

But the lineup of 3 dates over less than 7 days was nothing I chose, just sort of the way things worked out. Tomorrow is a coffee date with a boy I know I will not end up dating for one very simple reason: this boy is not yet divorced. Separated, for nearly a year I guess, but not actually divorced. Guess who does not ever, ever, ever want to be involved with someone who is married, even if that person is just married on paper? This lady, this one right here.

Date number 3 is with a nice-seeming dude who makes odd music and works on installing museum exhibits, and who I know almost nothing about. Pursuant to that, I have no real expectations for this date, but at least this one is not motherfucking married. Jesus H. Christ, what the hell.

I also just received an email from a boy I was kind of "in love with" while I lived in Japan, asking when I'll be returning to that country. That this boy was not single for most of the time I knew him, but is single now, adds a whole extra exciting layer of aw;eoriuawaorjw;fjehrltwerifuwaedfget to things.

Being a lady is...

I am really enjoying this St. Vincent album, a few months behind the curve I suppose, but that's about my speed right now. Two nights ago, I put it on while a male friend was at my home. He told me he liked the album as well, and then mentioned how attractive the artist is. Google has confirmed this is the case.
I sometimes wish that the female musicians, writers, bloggers etc that I liked did not all seem to be thinner and prettier than the average lady. Is that somehow a misogynist thing to say? I sort of feel disappointed to see that all the women who's being celebrated for being talented, even in the sort of "indie" realm I operate in, are also very pretty in the face and skinny in the body. Where's my lady Thom Yorke? That man's uncomfortable visage just sort of adds to his music.
Maybe I just have to learn to be cool with "hot girls who are also talented", instead of "appreciative yet also jealous of" these people. Yet in a weird way I feel like in desiring to date men, I am not only up against the ladies around me, but also these hipster-ideal artists of various stripes. I even almost didn't share the (witty, off-beat, excellent) writings of Edith Zimmerman with my friends, even though I like them quite a bit, for fear of being somehow compared to her in terms of my own wit and cuteness. That lady has some extreme cute-face.

I dearly wish I could view my own gender in a more rational way.

I am feeling pretty bad tonight for no particular reason. If you are feeling similarly, I bet reading this will cheer you up a little: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cats_with_fraudulent_diplomas

Retract.

I thought better of that last one.

Today I have been sick.

I've had a lot of strange sick-person dreams, including one where I had to escape my evil weird family to chase after the love of my life (?) who was in another country...this involved riding a big motorcycle and going to a wedding but hiding in the closet and all sorts of really strange nonsense.
This was after a dream in which Conan O'Brien was telling dirty jokes as I carried around a sick man who was somehow both homosexual and my lover.
Then, the third dream was that I was going into a library over and over again, but could never tell whether or not the library was open due to the poor lighting and heavy oak trees surrounding the building. I half woke up convinced I was supposed to start writing a comic strip about a young librarian who worked there, and a boy who starts to study to become a wizard in order to win her love.

...Which is not the worst idea for a comic. But it's not like I can draw or anything.

Ah, mi bici.

After a long time being on two legs, being on two wheels is a little terrifying. My new bike is definitely a fixer-upper, a project to keep me occupied when I need a distraction from school. The bike is an old 70s taiwanese import, a little heavy but I can manage to shoulder it and get it up the stairs to my apartment. The brakes are not quite up to my standards though, and there's some rust...I want to strip it, repaint the frame, update some of the rustier components and put on a new headset/handlebars (I loved my old bike's bull horns). Fun! I have never done any of this before, but I want to embrace a wrenchier side of myself.
I still want to repaint/redo my living room too. So maybe my fall will be filled with all sorts of improvements. I'm even planning on starting yoga, at school, because I could probably stand to stretch out a little.
And then there's the possibility of Vietnam in two months as well...I haven't decided if I'm going for sure, or bought the tickets, but I like the idea of it all. What's his name says we can go to Halong Bay, or maybe to Laos, or to Cambodia and Angkor Wat...

Things that are currently empty.

1) My bank account.
2) My brain.

Correspondence.

I just received a little email from my adviser, after months of being incommunicado, and something about his style of address always makes me relaxed and calm. Such a sweet and old-fashioned man, for someone who is probably not over 40.

I haven't been writing anything in this space, my blog-space, so here are some excerpts from messages I have written (and received).

"Hi Alex,
I've never seen "The OC" either. Maybe I'm just being contrary, but I hate all those shows that try to glorify and sex up the experience of high school on principle. My high school experience was dumb and ache-y and dramatic and silly and sad, and a lot of it consisted of sitting with a friend in some kind of cheap diner setup eating fried fish sandwiches or 2am breakfast combos, and everyone had bad skin and couldn't smile for pictures and drove cars that cost in total less than one thousand dollars. I resent the implication that it could have gone any other way, or that it should have."

"Man... your whole paragraph on "Academia and Fulfillment": I just sat there nodding my head, "uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh." It is hard to explain, but I know what you mean completely. Besides a few idiosyncracies, my early-20s experience is matching up pretty well to what it might have otherwise been in academia. So, I guess, G-d bless to you weathering the breakdown."

"venice is pretty amazing it may be my favorite place in CA so far. I like that it unashamedly lives up to the cliches, when my dad came out here to visit me he really wanted to fo to Venice beach to see if it was like on TV, with the rollerblading girls in bikinis, the skateboarders, graffiti, and muscle beach. he was not disappointed.

and oh the sunglass vendors! it´s the only place that i can find clip on´s that fit my frames. i need to go back and get another pair, i lost my last on a tequilla and rum filled ¨adventure¨. I´m only a little ashamed to admit it but i secretly would like some of the ¨kanye glasses¨"

"Roots! I need more of them. In actuality, I have been sort of dating a boy for the last few months (not "serious", actual dating) who is leaving LA for a 6-month stint in Vietnam at the end of this month. I've always known he was going, since he bought the ticket before I met him, but I thought for some reason that that knowledge would keep me from getting attached to him. Alas, it did not. And here goes another root, about to get pulled up.
Your statement made me think of him particularly because he spends so much time talking about how he doesn't want to ever get married or have kids that I am sure he'll have both within the next 5 to 10 years. And I have sort of realized that I do want such things as well. For one, kids are awesome, and for another, I think finding a partner and then making a family with them would be probably an amazing and transformative experience. Of course, I generally try to keep these thoughts to myself."

"you are back in the US, so I should ask you: what's your phone number, benjamin?"

"I can't help but think henry miller was just kind of a hack! A friend of mine has Opus Pistorumon on his bookshelf and he challenged me to open it randomly to a page and start reading, in order to show that there was nothing but sex on every page. I did open it to a bland passage somehow anyway, but the point being that Miller just wrote a lot of smut over and over again still stands, I think.
Of course I guess boys like smut, and literary boys must like literary smut."

"We explored the city a bit, as well. I wish I could describe to you the sort of magic I see in this place sometimes. We traveled past closed shops, and the neon lights and signs in the windows mixed the most eclectic set of colors I can imagine. We drove past what would be mansions if they were transported to Beverly Hills, but because they're near the 10, they're "slums"... or are they? The Los Angeles I grew up in did not contain this sort of intrigue. Echo Park, where I live now, where I'd never have come close to when I lived here for 21 consecutive years, is full of this magic. Yes, it's a little dirty and seems a little dangerous, but it also seems to have this really interesting spark of hope to it, as well. As you may know, this area used to be completely gang infested, but now it's strange - you can walk around at 1 or 2 AM outside without feeling like you're in danger. The best I can liken it to is, at the end of Armageddon, or any disaster movie, when people come out of where they were hiding and have that look on their faces like "Is it over?" That's hope, mang."

New roommate hunt continues.

I have definitely three, and possibly four different women coming over to see my apartment today in order to decide if they'd like to live here. This is after seeing three people yesterday who all kind of sucked (too young, not interesting, didn't seem like they'd be able to pay the rent on time...all sorts of issues!), and then three other people last week. Since I only have about 5 days left to get someone to agree to move in here, I'm kind of scared, but this newest batch of people seems really good. All are around my age, in grad school or have been in grad school, and are friendly and whatnot over email. One is even a vegetarian, hey! Maybe I won't have to move out in semi-disgrace on July 31st to become a beach bum after all.

Also, my eye still looks a little funny, but not overwhelmingly so. I managed to go back to work like people do last week, and while not working for two weeks has me kind of freaked out, as long as I don't have to move I definitely have enough of a cash buffer to get me through August safe and serene. In a weird way, even though things are going kind of badly, I feel mostly awesome on a day to day basis. I'm even slowly cleaning and organizing my room in a logical manner. Insanity!

I will miss the goofy and sweet presence of my current roommate in this place, though. Even if she did put too much importance on the cleaning or non-cleaning of dishes.

Men I love.

An incomplete list.

Conan!, Devendra, Albert Camus, one W. Benjamin, one Jon Stewart, my advisor, oh god my old advisor in undergrad, F.Pritchard, Fred Neil, of course George, Ira Glass, the young Ginsberg, James Dean, Paul Newman, mister P. Drew, Brad Neely, mssrs. Bret and Jemaine, Steve Carrell, Zach Galifinakis (whose name I can spell and say correctly), Michael Ian Black, Pessoa, dear sad d.a. levy, Robert De Niro even though he frequently makes a mockery of my love, Richard Lawson, Alex Balk, Choire Sicha, and a host of other internet personalities such as Rain Noe, but wait there's more, Frank O'Hara, Groucho Marx, Jean Cocteau, some weird idea I have of french male intellectuals in general, Michel Foucault, Kevin Barnes, the man who is June Panic, Lou Barlow (even though he used to write dumb songs about getting stoned), Michael Caine, John Oliver, Arthur Lee, John Fante in regards to that one book of course, Chris Onstad except for a few key moments, and many many more.

Men I don't love even though maybe I should: Bukowski, Morrissey (except sometimes), Paul McCartney, well maybe I do still love Robert Plant.

I was just sort of overcome, while sitting to my morning coffee, with the fact that there are and have been many great dudes out there, and they have made my life a much happier life than it would have been else-wise.

On the other side of the road.

So, on Wednesday I wore a silly gown and funny booties and then some medicines dripped into my blood stream til I fell asleep. While I slept, a few doctors watched and a few participated in sewing a plastic band to the outside of my eyeball, in a place where I can't see it. Then I woke up and shook around and complained like a baby until my body felt right again, and I was allowed to go home.

Now I am in that home, wearing sunglasses indoors, which I will have to do for a few weeks. At some point in the next few weeks my current roommate will presumably move out, and a new one will hopefully move in. My eye, which is now red and angry, will slowly return to its normal state. In the meantime, I will try to grow comfortable with my shadowy vision.

song of the summer.

Tomorrow, I am going to yell at my doctor.

Things I have recently come to discover I don't like.

One of my awesome procrastination websites is "Helsinki Looks", at hel-looks.com. It is all a bunch of pictures of people on the street in Helsinki, with a little bit of info about where they bought their clothes and what their personal style is. For some reason I like this kind of thing, the kind of thing where I can look at people who wear interesting clothes in maybe different ways from what I have considered in the past. It is incredibly frivolous, of course, but then most procrastination is.
However, from looking at all these pictures of people (so many, many people!), I've realized that I do not like:
-Animal prints, in any kind, ever.
-Really elaborate punk styles.
-Men who have really skinny legs that make me think they actually have no flesh on their bones under those tight jeans.
-White girls dressing up in those Lolita styles from Japan.
-Or really, white girls dressing up in any way that they got from a weird subculture in Japan.
-People whose mode of dressing themselves is to put as much multicolored crap on their bodies as is humanly possible (most of these people are like, 15 though, so it is rude of me to hate on them).

Other things I don't like today, that aren't related to clothing:
-The fact that I am definitely getting sick.
-The fact that I am terrible at focusing on my writing, even when I really want to get said writing done and like my topic.
-The terrible mopey depresso weather we've been having. What the fuck is up, sunshine?
-Great, someone just pointed out that I even sound sick today. I don't like that none either.
-Seriously, why can I not write for more than 2 minutes at a time? Isn't that clearly just ridiculous?
-My eyes hurt.
-Wah, wah, wah.

So, there you have it! I am sorry that I put these words onto the internet, and that you had to read them.

Discovery.

On my third day in a row of not going to campus, I suddenly discover that I have energy again, want to dance around or play with my dumbbells, and generally do not feel like a waste of space. For the first time in quite a few weeks, it feels like!
Needless to say, I can't wait until this week is over, and my summer legitimately begins.

Right now then, I am trying to come up with two papers. One is going to be a lot of fun, I think (in my way of saying fun). It's about using the "interview", or not using it, as a narrative technique in constructing histories of counter-cultural events. The events in question are Paris May '68, the Tlatelolco Massacre, and AMPO 1960 in Japan. And I'm looking at three different texts, one for each of these events, and their conscious use of the interview format in creating certain types of stories about these different histories. And thinking about how something like the interview can be used to subvert or challenge a more structured narrative, and what the limitations of the format are, etc. Fun? Yes, it is actually a lot of fun, at least conceptually.

The other paper is a crappy thing I never really got a handle on from last quarter, but need to finish this week anyway. It's a short kind of thing, 10 pages on a short story plus some theoretical aspect. I should be able to do it in two days? After I finish the paper I actually like to think about...yes, I can do this, I do believe.

Afterward I get to embrace a little freedom. And reply to a lot of emails.

Some days, I am Seeräuber Jenny.

Mormons ruin yet another thing.

Okay, so I know that the Burmese military junta would have found some other excuse to put Aung San Suu Kyi back in jail or extend her house arrest, even if that stupid fucking guy hadn't swam to her house. But still! What the fuck were you thinking, asshole?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/18/burma-suu-kyi-trial

So, once again, she is on trial. Because I am an optimist idiot, I had thought in fall 2007 that the mass protests of the monks would have finally pushed the military government out. Obviously, that hasn't happened. And, like so many other incredibly depressing instances of deprivation and oppression in the world (and in this country), I feel like a lame sad moron because all I can do is sit around, signing online petitions, waiting to see what comes next.


In totally stupid and unimportant "news", I have found this weekend that wearing my glasses while watching Tina Fey on 30 Rock makes me feel even more like Liz Lemon is a lot like future me will be. Please make sure I don't have any lettuce in my hair today, world.

When I think that I'm over you, I'm overpowered.

Two things are happening.
One, one of my students has the swine flu. I find this hilarious. If I start vomiting and losing fluids and shit, we will know the cause. If this happens and I get quarantined for a week at home, like my student, please leave me some soup/tamiflu on the stoop. I'll come out to get it after you've retreated to safe distance.

The other: tomorrow night, I have a date to go drink downtown with a boy who has been flirting with me by telling me, repeatedly, that he's not my type and we probably don't have anything in common. This is probably true, because he's a 30 year old waiter/actor who just got out of a long-term relationship, makes rap music on the side, doesn't think he's that smart, and a whole host of other things. He's into his car! I have never even imagined dating someone who's really into their fucking car.

And yet I'm going on this date anyway. To answer your question, yes, he's really fucking attractive. And, you know, also seems like a sweet guy despite all the warning signs. I'm kind of excited about the potential for this to be one big crazy mistake, I tell you what.

...

http://www.mtv.com/videos/movie-trailers/380369/mega-shark-vs-giant-octopus.jhtml

What? Let me ask that again...what???

You should read all of this, because it's pretty great.

BN knows what's up. You don't have to read the question, what's really important is his response.

http://www.blognigger.com/2008/12/ask-blognigger-lexapro.html

There's a good follow-up here too, if you want more: http://streetbonersandtvcarnage.com/blog/ask-blognigger-i-hate-myself-and-i-want-to-die/

I think all of this is pretty important, of course, because there have been a lot of times either I've worried or people I know have worried both about being unhappy forever, and about taking drugs that will "change" them and that they'll have to rely on. When I think about the idea of taking pills every day for the rest of my life, it seems pretty bad, until I think about the idea of being a miserable sad shit for the rest of my life. Somehow that puts a lot of things in perspective.

To live should be to enjoy things, be happy, to love good people and do good work. And there are a hundred million things that can go wrong with that, but if one of them's the weird chemicals in your brain and you can fix it, why not fix it?

Telling facts about my adolescence.

Apropos of nothing (or, okay, of Choire Sicha saying words), I was reminded of being at a sushi restaurant with my immediate family in the summer of 2002, hearing my stepfather order a "9-1-1 Roll" as a "9/11 Roll".

he still hasn't shut up!

a: omg I am on the phone with some internet dood
a: it is terrible
y: HAHA
a: listening to him go on
a: jesus boy shut it
y: AHAHA
y: well when you get of of the phone, watch those videos
a: yes ma'am I am looking forward to it
y: tell the boy to shut it
a: it is impossible
y: be like 'oh shit my phone is about to die, i gotta go!'
a: when I can't get him to even stop taaaaalking
a: haha
a: I wish I was bolder
a: and could pull that off
y: haha
y: tell him you have to go, you have another call
a: jesus god he's talking on and on about his old relationships
a: we haven't even met yet
y: haha
y: can't he hear you typing?
a: not over the sound of his own voice?
y: hahaha

Eureka!

The Albertson's by my house has Vernors! Who would have thought the sweet gingery concoction would pass my lips ere I lived so far west of the Mississippi...
I bought a six-pack, and am on my second of the evening. The first was too warm, but the second is just lovely, all comfortable green and gold can and memories of my grandparents and slow little sips that time I had scarlet fever as a child.

"The windless sea of 21st century progress".

For no discernible reason, today feels like it might be the day I lose it. I left the house in dirty/unappealing clothes, missed Korean class, rode a bus to school that was uncharacteristically filled with the dying and decrepit, sat through visitor-less office hours, ate disgusting vegetable enchiladas, and am now sitting in an empty classroom next to the classroom in which my class is held in. The class will begin in 5 minutes. I need to get up and walk next door in the next five minutes. I feel very hot and a little nauseous and I would like to go home now, please.

This weekend, I learned who Clinton Jencks was.

me: and I guess it's just crazy too to realize how strong unions used to be in america
that locals would have classes, social events, etc
and to think how weird it is that unions have become this sort of strange force...seen as corrupt and bloated in certain sectors
I dunno!
it's so much I just didn't know about
Inkoo: yeah
i learned about neoliberalism in my sovereignty class last quarter
and now i can't stop thinking about how it's affected like probably every aspect of my life
since we are children of the 80s
and 90s
and how now that neoliberalism and capitalism has barfed and shit all over itself, we might have a fresh start
me: it's true!
I hope that is what happens
time to go red again
I mean, why the fuck not?
Inkoo: because it's unholy!
jesus loves capitalism
that's clearly why he wanted all the rich men to have a monopoly on the eyes of needles
Sent at 11:38 PM on Monday
me: hahaha
oh that statement makes me happy

Inkoo is busy. You may be interrupting.


Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go read a great deal more about anti-communism's destruction of the labor movement, the civil rights era sit-ins, a big excerpt from Negroes with Guns, and probably some shit about Berkeley in there for good measure! American history, ladies and gentlemen!

Yes.

Something I learned today.

It's hard to be liked by boys who are also poets, because then they will write poetry about you. Or, worse, as in today, write poetry that certainly seems to be about you, then claim that it isn't...

Something I learned last night is that everyone, even people who don't like stand-up comedy, find Louis C.K. talking about white privilege excellent. And it is!

In related news, on Gawker a day or two ago Alex Pareene posted this little news tidbit about New York's first black AND first blind governor, David Paterson, being sued by someone who claimed he was fired for being white. After making fun of the dude, Pareene ended the article by reminding everyone that "reverse racism" does not, in fact, exist. And that made me happy.
Then I read the comments to the post, in which a lot of white people claimed that "reverse racism" does in fact exist, even trying to read into Pareene's very explicit statement that he did in fact think you can discriminate against the whites. And then I was glad, that I am no longer in college, and thus no longer have to hang out with stupid white people.

Luckily, faith in humanity was restored when someone quipped "Today as everyday, I cried big tears for all the injustices white men suffer."

Now, back to the books! Also, Pareene, if you ever don't have that girlfriend you have, I'd like to make out with you?

I also wanted to mention that this morning, I found a text from my youngest sister asking me simply "Donald or Daffy Duck?". I responded "Daffy", and a few hours later was told that "That is correct".
She is about to turn seventeen. In a way this conversation heartens me, because she's quite pretty, and I would like boys to stay away from her for as long as possible.

Flushed.

Tomorrow, after an extended bout with poverty, I will have money in my bank account again. To celebrate this fact, I spent 10 of my last 15 dollars on thai curry and rice for dinner, and then looked at some shirts online until the fact that all the models wearing said shirts were only visible from the bridge of their nose downward started to freak me out. Why aren't the models allowed to show their eyes?
I also have noted that the "new" "style" for "skirts" is that they be short and pulled up to right under the boob area. So, you know, I'm looking forward to having my eyes raped repeatedly from whenever the weather starts to stay above 70 degrees until oh, late November or so. Meanwhile, I will continue my plans to create a hybrid nun's habit/mechanic's jumpsuit so that I can see myself into the post-swine flu zombie apocalypse in comfort and style, while revealing as little of my flesh as possible so as to not unduly tempt the undead. Plus, wimples!

But hey, I didn't intend to write about clothes or anything even vaguely related to that tonight. I have actually been carrying around an inner blogging narrative all day today, which is quite sad, especially since I've been awake since 5:30am. Teaching at 8am requires me to get up earlier and earlier, in order to do whatever grading or lesson planning is left over from the night before, or just to stare uncomprehendingly at my alarm clock until I can make myself get out of bed. I hate it vehemently until about the time when I get coffee in my hand and then leave the apartment, and then I always feel won over by the surprise thrill of being awake early in the morning. There's something about being proudly stoic that gives me a little rush, as I walk down the street fully dressed and cognizant at 7am, before all save one shop (a restaurant/cafe place) in my neighborhood have opened. The morning is usually cloudy, and never warm, deliveries are made and the sidewalks are hosed off, and it suits me well.

I don't feel well-suited to my element, or my environment, all that often, and so those moments are particularly sweet. These early mornings, or when I sit in my advisor's office, or when I've written something or said something at school that hits the mark -- then I have that realization, "ohhh, so I am alive after all, aren't I?". Like the first time you breathe in winter air in the morning, and the cold goes up in your nose and then down to your lungs, your eyes open wider or maybe you close them tight, and just...ahhhhhh. Everything around you exists acutely, the edges could slip and cut you in half like a paper doll.

This reminds me of an image I once came up with for an imaginary movie I wanted to make while I lived in Japan. A woman would sit in a folding chair, with bay windows behind her covered in gauzey white drapes. She'd wear a black dress with a high neck and a wide skirt that reached the floor, and she'd sit in a wide stance with her knees far apart. And draped across her would be the body of a boy, alive but perhaps unconscious or somehow asleep, heavy like the body of Jesus in the Pieta. Then she'd draw a bow across his body like a cello.
I thought of this scene for no reason, and then I wanted to make a film that would have this image in it, so that it could exist somewhere outside of my mind. The concept for it went on and on, but I never wrote any of it down, because it was so far out of my element and something in me feels ridiculous for pretending I have more artistic capability or integrity than a goat. Yet I don't quite want to relinquish the ideas either.


In completely unrelated news, the "lingerie" on the urban outfitters website is so goofy and trashy it makes me want to go find someone to dress up for. Mesh, lace, and ribbons? Well, why the hell not!

The Women.

Banal observation time. Today, the weather is perhaps too beautiful. Crisp enough to make walking outside feel exciting, but the sun is still shining, compounding my regret that I am currently in a basement office writing a paper, and that I won't be finished with class for another four and a half hours. I can't wait until my schedule isn't so campus-oriented; today would be perfect for drinking coffee and reading on the balcony.
This reminds me that, as soon as I get paid, I can perhaps finally attempt to grow a few delicious things out on that little space. Tomatoes and basil seem easy enough, as long as I can convince the roommate to stop feeding squirrels until the weather gets cold again. I don't find those little fuckers nearly as cute as she does; definitely not cute enough to forfeit the possibility of delicious fresh tomatoes.
I would like some chemist to find a way to reproduce the scent a tomato stem has right after you've pulled the fruit off of the vine...it could be my "signature scent". Right now, I smell like skin, and maybe a little tinge of soap.

Non-banal observations next. I've been thinking and talking a good bit the last few days about women and being "emotional", or as our society has deemed it, "being a crazy bitch". In general, I think we've come about three or four feet forward since the days of being diagnosed with hysteria, although the language of the discussion has changed. Women, during relationships with men (especially while beginning them), are all I think afraid of coming off as "crazy"; ie, too attached, too interested, too irrational, too emotional. Controlling these emotions becomes an obsession, and while the object of our affection might be spared from experiencing how we "really" feel, the internalized debate over what can and can't be said/done/etc is definitely something of a hazard to the woman herself -- not to mention all her friends who have to hear about it endlessly. All the non-crushing have to step in as a sort of judicial panel: "Yes, it's okay to call him now." "No, I don't think that's a weird reaction to have." "No, don't text him once until he texts you twice." And so on, so on, so on...

But to what end? Looking back, I don't think I've ever regretted not "controlling" myself more. In general, exercising restraint has resulted in a sort of prolonging of an inevitable rupture; for instance, getting upset about not hearing from someone often results in trying to "keep cool", suppressing the feelings, and waiting it out. But that has never worked out in my favor. Sure, other girls will say that I did the right thing, but in the end, all it means is waiting an extra week or so before figuring out that Boy X is acting like a dickhead, that nothing I can do is going to fix said dickheadedness, and that I stressed myself out needlessly for said week instead of getting started on moving on.

And the few times I've just done crazy shit (punching that guy), I've never felt a moment's regret about it (except wishing that I could punch better). Why hold back the tears and the yelling and whatever else? Those are your emotions, man, get them out. Repressing them will just end up either a) putting you in therapy, or b) making you into an emotionally fucked-up asshole. Who I will then date? Yeah, probably that's the next step in that progression.

I'd go on, but someone gave me a liter of free diet coke, and I now have to pee out all that fucking aspartame...

The internet is a surveillance state.

One thing I feel goony about is all the times when I get into a jag of listening to one song over and over. Before the internet(!), I could escape from sharing the fact that I'd listened to one song ten times in a row because that was my own private life, goddamnit, and no one was looking over my shoulder as I set up my discman to repeat one song over and over again. But now, since I have the last.fm music logger thing (which I have actually had for four years now, dear god), I feel sort of extra nerdy about my occasional song obsessions, as well as any time I listen to something particularly cheesy. No one needs to know about that week in 2007 when I thought "Last Dance With Mary Jane" was a really good song. And yet!

And yet, I would feel pretty upset if one day the last.fm website were to disappear, and those years of my internet listening habits were no longer recorded. Especially as now it can even process the stuff I listen to on my beat-up ol' iPod, which I think is still a new-ish development. There I am in all that strange data, revealing to the world that the last 6 years or so of searching for music off the beaten track has done nothing to sever my dependence on listening to the Beatles.

It also makes me feel strange, and not so great in the end, that most everything I listen to exists only in the computerized world. Of course, if I had to rely on only being able to listen to music I had bought in a physical store, I would be royally fucked, since my dumb overeducated white poor person lifestyle doesn't leave a lot of extra monies for media purchases. Last weekend I bought a used novel for $5, and as of current writing I have $40 in my bank account for the rest of the month, so I feel pretty stupid about spending that $5 on words instead of food. Of course, the less money I have, the more I am drifting towards the truly idealized life of the scholar, which generally seems to require that one own clothes with holes in them (done) and be somewhat skeletal. Mind over body, and so forth!

In related news: I am pretty hungry. Luckily I have a lot of unliked clothing to try to sell to Buffalo Exchange, and I also can make an okay meal out of a can of beans and a can of tomatoes?

I have also noticed lately that when I run into a particularly pretty, well-dressed female acquaintance of mine on campus (I teach in the building her department is housed in, so I run into her about once a week or so), I find myself getting really cranky about the fact that she somehow manages to finance an ever-changing wardrobe on a TA's salary. And, you know, is all pretty and shit. This crankiness makes me feel bad of course, because what did she ever do besides suck less at life than I do?, but there it remains! Go away, overwhelming consumerist impulses, get the fuck outta here.

Every time I log into facebook, it is an affirmation of the fact that by and large, the people I have known are idiots. There's just no getting around it.

Psychedelicatessen.

Samson is sending up a gigantic new shoot, in that weird too-bright color of baby plants, and the leaves are even starting to unravel off the stalk. Which is comforting, as before it looked like aggressive flora genitalia sticking up out of the moss. I am proud of the plant's progress, although it's not like I contributed anything to it besides semi-regular watering.

...And although I started writing this with the best of intentions, suddenly I am too sleepy to really want to continue. Things happened today, too -- I saw Slavoj Zizek wear yet another dirty t-shirt and talk about the future of capitalism, I heard Louis-Georges Tin talk about the construction of "heterosexuality", I ate more than one meal consisting of beans and tortillas. I rode a slow bus home, and passed some kind of crime scene, while an acquaintance sitting behind me said something about seeing a dead girl's body. I saw a picture of a misguided and angry middle-aged woman wearing a sunhat with teabags hanging off the brim.

All these things and more, and more. I'd like now to sleep, but then the dishes won't get done, or the laundry. Or the reading of various important things, the waking up by 6am, the going to teach something or other again, and so it goes. The week is over in two more days, and christ, how much haven't I done yet. I want to make a coccoon out of pillows and blankets and things that make me feel warm, and sleepy, and softly removed from time.

As a postscript, here's a goal I can get behind:

I am halfway through this and I like it.

Suburban monastery death poem: http://www.thing.net/~grist/l&d/dalevy/levy-l1.htm

(Finished it now, and it is indeed all good to me...better than my history seminar reading, although relevant to it, since it's a class on the '60s. d.a. levy can be my new dead imaginary friend. and he says:

note:

peace & awareness are
like two small birds
trying to leave the planet
because they are tired of dying

im not advocating anything

......which I can agree with as well).

Everybody needs a bosom for a pillow.

About a month ago, herr doktor put me on a higher dosage of my main anti-depressant med and started phasing me off of the other one. Turns out, after about a year and a half on those medicinals, I was still experiencing the symptoms of major depression. Which I guess I would have figured out on my own, if I hadn't been feeling so depressed?

To be more serious, I just sort of chalked a big mess of things up to being exhausted by school and in need of a break. And, you know, laziness. I have always been pretty sure that I am just an inherently lazy person.

Except! Things are getting a little different in Amy-town these last few days. Although I can't say my mood has changed (indeed, I have felt pretty sub-human the last week/weekend), suddenly I'm doing things. I have exercised in a substantial manner for the last three days -- something that almost never happens. I've been all throwing dumbbells up and dancing around and sweating til my hair starts to stick together and my chest has turned pink. And, you know, I kind of like it.

And then yesterday, while sitting at the bus stop, I wrote three short (unfinished) poems -- something I haven't done in probably two years, if not longer. The last one was excrement, but the first two weren't so terrible. The first one I'll stick here I guess (Lilly, you still read my blog, don't you?)

Walking home in pairs

the comedian said
"'Every living thing dies alone' --
Well, it isn't true,
Sometimes a relative stays
in the room
after they pull the plug."

I might be wrong about everything, and so I

And so I'd better have a baby
as soon as I turn thirty --
one with all the right
chromosomes,
one that will grow up
healthy,
one that can learn how to
feel guilt.


So, there's that nonsense. The other two were about sex and about getting stared at while waiting for the bus, respectively. Not like I know anything about those topics, of course...

Yesterday, I sat with a friend and ate a calzone and talked about a topic I've thought often about. This ties in a bit with the weird fact of my exercising -- anyway, being a person who lives in america, I feel pretty weird about my body a lot of the time. There's all the intimacy stuff of course (curse the day I found out that men have opinions on whether or not you have an ugly vagina...), but in a more day to day way I also often feel just rather oversized and unnecessary. At no time did I feel this more acutely than when I lived in Japan. And I'm sure it's because I'm already really fucking sensitive (in the bad way), but while I was there I felt from time to time as if I'd ceased to be a woman completely. I was taller than the men, I weighed as much as nearly two women, my hair was about three inches long and I didn't really do a great job of things like wearing makeup. I don't much wear skirts either, or like wearing dresses, or (this is sad, but true) always feel comfortable having my shoulders exposed in public. Not exactly feminine, although in the US I feel like I get by all right.
Not in Japan, though. This was sort of compounded by the fact that I couldn't buy clothes that were made for most Japanese women anyway. I bought men's jeans at Uniqlo and spent long, long periods of time hoping to find a place where I could buy shoes. Shirts I did okay with, but I could never get into the weird tunic-over-turtleneck thing that was going on while I lived there, so I certainly didn't appear "stylish". I coped a little by ceasing to get my hair cut, and by the time the year ended I could put it up in a standard ponytail. And I started buying earrings almost obsessively. But I still felt, at best, asexual, foreign, out of place.
And I feel like if that feeling had gone on, I could have easily "given in" and just embraced my weird almost-masculinity. Start wearing 60s throwback mod boots and army jackets, give myself spiky hair, I could've done that. And when I think about going back for a long period of time, I get a little scared -- how will I deal with it the next time? Grow my hair out long in defense, drop 30 lbs, what? It's painful to imagine.
The biggest element of diffence is, in a nutshell, that in America men will hit on me and in Japan they do not. It just isn't the way it works. And so much of my gendered sense of self, clearly, comes from this idea of reinforcement. I'm a lady because I look like these other ladies, because men see me as a lady, and so on. It is extremely weird to think of how easily all that can become loosened, and makes me wonder what "gendered" idea of myself I would hold onto in a vacuum.

This sort of ties into my thing about exercising in that I question whether I do it because I want strength or because I want to lose weight. To be honest, I want them both, because right now I feel like I look like shit and I know I couldn't lift something heavy or run a mile to save my life. But what of that will actually keep me moving?

This thought leads me on to talking about reinforcement again (ie, I rarely feel bad about my body when I have someone that desires me, but when I'm alone with just my head to judge it I feel like I'm a pile of shit shoved into a human-shaped bag), but surely I must quit writing. I have a doctor's visit to keep.

Postscript: The reason, of course, that I wanted to write all these rather mundane observations down was that I had believed in the past, at least, that I was tough enough to basically feel the same about myself in any context. Especially since I've been such a good hermit for most of my life. The Buddhists would tell me that my self does not exist anyway, so why bother, but of course I am concerned with this whole idea anyway.

Contradictions, contradictions.

Today has spanned perhaps too wide a spectrum of emotions for me. Let me tell you all about it!

Before writing my previous entry (emotion: terrible embarrassment), I overslept and missed attending the lecture I am currently TAing for (emotion: guilt). Lately I find myself sleeping like the most unpleasant parts of my subconscious have me in a headlock; the dreams are terrible and I'm too exhausted to wake up from them. Last night/this morning, I dreamt I was being hunted down by various hitmen, who'd get a million dollars if they managed to kill me. For some reason, I was also some kind of hitman, or at least really familiar with firearms, because whenever one found me I managed to avoid being killed and take them out instead. I even remembered to switch the safety off.
The panic of all this "action" lingered on after I woke up.

While I was being shot at/hiding from being shot at, my mother threatened to commit suicide (emotion: anger). I also had to take several buses/trains for no apparent reason (more panic), and rescue one of my sister's childhood friends from a large cult religion (which my mother had also joined) based on the idea that the world was about to experience a second biblical flood. Emotion here, of course, more anger. God, do I ever hate anything involving cults, or my mother.

Upon waking at long last (the dream went on from here, by the way, but I know how impossible it is to make a dream ever, ever sound interesting), I took a shower, which was at least rather pleasant. The morning coffee was also good, until I discovered captain moustachio douchebag's photo on the internets. And then, bus ride (frustration), class (moments of feeling smart again), and finally, the contradiction that made me feel like writing something today.

I volunteered last week to meet with a prospective student for our department, and after class I and a colleague met up with her. I've done this once before, and today I was surprised again to see myself becoming effusive about my advisor, classes, fellow students and all the rest of it. After all, as anyone who has read this blog or ever spoken to me knows, my experiences in grad school have been pretty tumultuous. I'm always broke, I have trouble with my workload, I don't always like teaching very much, LA frustrates me, and on it goes. And yet I still felt like it was my job to personally convince this girl to come study here anyway. I imagine patriotism feels something like this.

I even stuck around after our assigned meeting time to make sure the girl managed to get on her shuttle back to the airport, all the while talking about how our dissertation program is better than the ones they have at other schools, and on and on. Why do this? I have no idea if this school is the right fit for other people, since I've never done graduate work anywhere else. It feels, now that I'm home, as if I was being disingenious. At the same time, I was doing a great job of convincing myself that I was happy to be where I am.

Then, I got on the bus to go home, as I do every day. From somewhere behind me, I heard a girl say a terrible thing; worse, a terrible thing I would never have to hear if I did not live in LA. She said, "There's an Ed Hardy store at the Beverly Center. We can go there and buy whatever you want". That one really made me feel sad, there's just no way around it.

And now I'm home on Friday night, and I must say I feel at the end very melancholy. My roommate invited me out to karaoke, but I only like to sing around people I know well. But of course, I also hate sitting alone on weekend nights, feeling like a loser who should have made plans or have more friends.
Hopefully, the cure for this is listening to Al Green's "Tired of Being Alone" ten times in a row. You and me both, Reverend.

Fucking hell.

It only took a few months of the site's existence, and someone I dated is now up on"I bang the worst dudes" ( sorry-mom.com ). At least I did not, in fact, bang him...

My current "net worth" is $1.02. Self-loathing, commence!

"Forgetting a child".

Alex Balk referred to this as "a brutal but worthwhile read". It is both those things: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/27/AR2009022701549_pf.html

In other news, it is 7am and I have been awake for an hour. I slept in a button-up shirt and cardigan (ie, the clothes I wore yesterday), with the lights on in my room, but luckily with the foresight at some point to remove my restrictive, no-stretch jeans. Momentarily I am going to go to the grocery store and buy breakfast foods and beer (for a party! not for morning drinking, I swear). Silly, silly life.

Lost in a moment.

Currently...

I am drinking caffeine and listening to Josh Weller. Talking about crying-time music, my goodness. At least his hair is one of the most pleasing things in this whole wide world.

These links are important.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/feb/13/california-prisons-early-release-economy

http://gawker.com/5154567/stray-black-cats-roam-london-selling-video-games

Sitting next to Samson.

Samson is my LA plant. He's a "luck tree", in a very nice sort of stone urn thing, and I bought him at a plant shop two blocks away from my apartment. His leaves are deep and shiny, and he has a little nesting of dead spray-painted moss covering up the dirt in his bowl. I like him. He cheers me up.

Also cheering me up is some red wine, and the "go fug yourself" website. I am not sure why I need cheering, but I do. I have met new people the last three days in a row, with maybe some success, and probably some failures as well. It has me a little worn out, to say the least, and I need some sort of brain-refresher...something that will let me stop thinking about these encounters, and what might happen next.

Two of the meetings were with people I've emailed a bit with over the internets, from the ok cupid site. And one of them I got along with very well -- and his brother, and his brother's girlfriend, all of whom I met in the space of two hours and then ended up spending Friday night hanging out with. The three of them together had a great vibe going on, very smart and jokey and mellow. Basically, I would like them all to adopt me -- it's the kind of feeling I haven't had since maybe the old days of TNA, when I had those brief moments of being with people who all knew and liked each other and were just straight-up class-A people. I am sorry that I was always such a drunky loser who wanted to go home by like 12:30 during our old nights out. I'd give a lot to have those nights back. I want bar friends back.

And now I'm anxious, because man, so far my meeting people off the internet game has been pretty shitty. I've been on a few dates, been dumped or ignored by a few dudes who weren't worth my time, had a few meals with strangers. None of it's really stuck, as of yet -- it's easy to forget someone that exists primarily in email form. And I really want these people to be my friends. Maybe, in particular, I miss the sort of practical feeling of being around midwesterners. There's something that feels more solid about it, like hey, these people are probably not at their core completely ridiculous. I dare you to say the same thing about the general human product of southern California.

Maybe my longtime friend depression is kicking in too now. There's a lot that's wrong with having a crazy mental disease, of course. But occasionally I feel like it keeps me less frivilous, encourages introspection, reminds me of my past. It's something inextricable from me, no matter what meds I'm on -- although of course the meds change the feel of the game, let me be the one in charge of it. My brain is a weird dance of chemicals pushing through a goopy mass of tissue. So it goes, so it goes.

The last person I met this weekend was very shy. So am I, sometimes, but I just kept trying to make conversation anyway. So it goes. There were some others in the middle, but none of them stood out.

A grand quote.

"Once, in 1946, while still an adolescent, I was to sign my name on the other side of the sky during a fantastic "realistico-imaginary" journey. That day, as I lay stretched upon the beach of Nice, I began to feel hatred for birds which flew back and forth across my blue, cloudless sky, because they tried to bore holes in my greatest and most beautiful work.

Birds must be eliminated."
-Yves Klein

新年明けましておめでとう！

I hope your new year's eve was less exciting, but at least as fun, as mine was!