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!