Sarah,
wandering.
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I praise the internet at times like these. I was driving home from work today and I was listening to All Things Considered. They were going through a short list of non-holiday music that still fits this season. I wasn't really listening to the people talk, but I tuned into the clips of music when they played. They played one clip that really got my attention. And of course, after the clip, no one mentioned the title or artist. Thanks to the internet, I found it. It's a song called "Olsen Olsen" by an Icelandic band called Sigur Ros. If you're familiar with the bands Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Mogwai, or Explosions in the Sky, you may enjoy this band. It's a little less "apocalyptic rock" but it is still really nice music. It's for the most part all instrumental and I suppose any vocals you would hear are more instrumental than lyrical. I looked them up on YouTube because that's a cheap way to hear a song without any strange downloading process. Don't mind the video (a fan-made video), but here's the song I heard. <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/go8Jc5Fx71I&hl=e Today, I purchased Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point. He is also the author of Blink and the now bestselling Outliers. I'm interested enough to read his books and am wondering if anyone had any thoughts about his work. It seems really interesting. So, I'm going to start reading that and reading The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood. I've also been really into Sudoku puzzles. Especially the "killer" ones. I finally cleaned out my office again. But it still feels too cold and sterile. Literally cold because there isn't any source of heat down there. Which is too bad because I think that with a little bit of heat, books give off a very wonderful smell. |
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It began as a rainy day. I wanted to go hiking on the trail today, but decided against it because of safety reasons (being alone and the fact that the steeper hills would be slippery). Len has a half-day at work today and I'm off for the next two days. Since I couldn't go hiking, I went running on my favorite abandoned road. It was pouring and all the tiny "waterfalls" were gushing. It was glorious. But then something more stereotypically gorgeous happened. The temperature rose all of a sudden as the sun came out, creating steam that rose from every surface, including my fleece coat and wooden fence posts. It was so beautiful. And then some smell arose when I decided to abandon my abandon road and run back towards home. It smelled like someone was baking something that would make others contently full. I imagined people surrounding a table of decadent food. I imagined lovers playing footsie. I imagined a jealous younger sister at the table, wishing she was playing footsie. I imagined a scrumptious dessert of coconut and I don't even like coconut. But these people did. And that was okay. I don't know what the smell was, but it made me think of Christmas and gathering. It is hard for me to believe that Christmas is less than a week away with this mild weather. Despite working at a bookstore where people are asking for gift receipts and my wrapping their gifts of books. I still didn't exactly feel Christmas coming. Depsite the decorating of a tree, baking of goods, and desire to wear a Santa hat, I still don't feel it. What makes Christmas for you? When I was a child, my sister, who is almost ten years my senior, helped me make a Christmas loop. It was a loop made of alternating red and green construction paper. The last loop would be gold (actually yellow). We would hang it on my door and each night, I'd take a loop off to signify one less day until Christmas. I stopped doing that years ago. My sister moved out when I was young, and I kept up with the tradition maybe two years and then quit. My parents always took pictures of me as I tore off that last loop. Then they'd take another picture of me as I got tucked into bed. I guess I don't have any strange traditions anymore. Nothing beyond the garmenting of various things, baking, and buying gifts. Maybe I'll start something new next year. Or now. Or nothing at all. I'm coming to realize that I am very bent on having a routine or way of doing things instead of everything being spontaneous and willy-nilly. People pride themselves on not being routine and being spontaneous, because they're afraid of seeming boring or traditional. I'm afraid of not knowing how to feel how I want to feel. But that mist sure was a glorious sight. |
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This morning you made me coffee and listened to me narrate my very lucid dreams from last night. Maybe if I read you to sleep every night, I will have such dreams and wake up early enough from them to rub your belly as you sleep. Something miraculous happened in my dream last night. Large flashing, colorful bubbles fell from the sky. I asked a random man in my dream what they were and he said that it was Summer Snow, that ice formed inside those protective bubbles so that they would not melt. The most amazing part of the dream was when I watched a bunch of these bubbles float into a random Jeep Cherokee, causing it to rock back and forth. Lights flashed and it seemed as if a galaxy was forming on the inside of the vehicle. And then all of a sudden, random golden equations began floating in the air like some diagram. It was telling me the speed of light. Strange. I ran approximately five miles on the Rachel Carson Trail today. Took a video of white tail deer running away from me.IThen went to Walmart and walked around, watching and following people. At some point while I was looking through one of those huge movie bins, I saw probably eight different men, all at once, and all spanning from ages as young as twenty-three and as old as seventy, walking around with these old-man hats that are actually termed "newsboy caps". They're really popular among old men and hipsters.  It was a very surreal experience for me. The whole hipster culture, actually, is a very surreal and almost-ugly experience for me.
Speaking of hipster culture, many left-wing environmentalists are disappointed in Obama's potential choice of Senator Salazar (a man that hardly goes seen without his cowboy hat and boots) as the head of the Department of the Interior. He is a rancher and said to be a moderate democrat. Some man on the radio was pissed, saying, "Well, we're all a bit disappointed. Obama promised us change." Naive.  Len used an old Vodka bottle and made it into a Charles Bukowski relic. It says, "These words I write keep me from total madness." And it has Bukowski's caricature signature.  Necklace I made for Kevin.  Two awesome fellows.   Him. Mine.   My beautiful nephew Aaron about to make Christmas cookies.  Me on the trail today.  My weird concoction I called dinner today. Chicken breast, black beans, red onion, sundried tomatoes, oregano, and creamy dijon. |
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Finished a paper today. Read a book today. It has been snowing all day, without accumulation, which leads me to believe that there must be ice on the road. While reading, I heard a truck drive by. By the way I imagine the driver was pressing the accelerator, it seems like there may be ice on the road. There was an "unsureness," a pausing-and-going taking place. Sounds like ice. I'm too comfortable to go check to see if there is, indeed, ice. |
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Today, he told me that his fifteen-year-old son died. |
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Whoa, I don't have to work this weekend! I can have my niece and nephew spend the night. My nephew, Aaron, finally has a deeper voice. He's thirteen. And he's tall. But so is she. They're both taller than I am, but that isn't a hard feat to accomplish. So, perhaps they will keep me and Len company this weekend. I'm glad that they still think we're "cool". Hell, I'm only nine years older! Anyway. Have to meet with the gang at school so we can sha-bam some ideas together about the after-school teaching program for kiddies. It should be interesting and fun. I've been making jewelry like crazy. Learning some new knots. It's that time of the season to weave up some bracelets and *cough* learn to crochet *cough*. I've been trying to learn (and have learned) for the past two years or so, but I never have the time to crochet beyond eight rows of a scarf, so I forget how to do it eventually. But this winter break, I'm totally going to go all out and unravel that yarn until I can't tell the yarn from my skin. Or so I say. Oh and I figured out what classes I'm taking next semester--and that I can afford them! Instead of taking just 9 credits in the spring, I'm taking twelve. And extra three (adding up to fifteen) for the Maymester when I go abroad. I'll have my publishing certificate and lit requirements out of the way if this all goes as planned. Yay! And perhaps I can go abroad twice to get my travel writing certificate. Sweet. But I have class now and then me and the guys are going to hunker down and watch what IMDB considers one of the top ten best worst films ever made: Troll 2. Yeah, I own that. |
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Leave it to Sarah to turn a ten page paper into something that can possibly be twenty or more pages. I have a ten page paper due Saturday and I'm six pages into it right now and am not even quite close to being ready to finish it. I did that all through undergrad, my papers were always longer, and the professors were typically okay with it. But this paper is for a panel in which I have twenty minutes to talk, so two minutes per page. I'm sure my professor doesn't want to read a longer paper. Oh well. It's better to have too much to work with than too little, no? But what a glorious day. Seriously. I love my solitude. I've been sitting in bed all day watching the campaign trail and writing this paper. I also wrote two poems. Kind of. I want to participate with the NaNoWriMo, but I don't want to write a novel. I just want to write as much as I can of whatever. School stuff doesn't count, but I want to fill up a 200 page notebook with writing by the end of the month. It's all prose and it's all just a bunch of observations, musings, etc. But it is indeed very inspirational, and I got two poems out of it today. Too bad those poems don't count for my actual assignment for tomorrow, which has to be in form. And it has to be about a childhood toy. I came up with interesting ways to go about it. For instance, if you look at childhood Christmas pictures of me, you are bound to find several of me laying on a couch with my new, favorite toy from that Christmas. Almost every year as a child, I would have the flu during Christmas and would therefore be lounging on the couch in the living room with my new toy, a rag on my head, a ghost-like face, and limp, wispy hair. Yeah, I used to have limp, wispy hair. Not anymore. Ha! I remember throwing up in the toilet one day when I was a child. I threw up a glob of water and mucus that floated in the toilet. I asked my mother what it was and she said it was the flu. So, for a while, I thought the flu was a tangible, disgusting blob inside a person. I guess you can still think of it that way. And I remember sleeping in my old bedroom as a child, sick and coughing like crazy. Earlier that day when I was in school (second grade or something), my friend Levi told me that he knew a guy who coughed his heart out (didn't realize that it was just a phrase) and I was laying in bed all night worrying about coughing my heart out. Those were the days I would sleep with a night-light and make shadow puppets as a child. But my shadow puppets weren't that elaborate or fun...they were just my hands folded into beaks. I would make my hands kiss because that was on my mind a lot because my sister was always kissing boys on the porch. She babysat me a lot and had all these guys over. Those days, I loved doing chores. I loved doing the dishes, and well, my sister loved the fact that I loved doing chores and making things shiny. She would fill up the sink with hot soapy water and pull a chair over to the sink so I can reach. She would go out on the porch with a guy that would constantly pull my hair or call me names. She would kiss him in the corner where no one can catch them. But me. She also dated this guy that I think we called "Jumbo". He would take empty pop (soda) cans, step on them, and walk around with them still on his feet. I fell in love with him because he did that and I became jealous of my sister. I liked older men even back then. I liked my older cousin Jason, to be honest. I really don't know why. And for once in my life, my closest friends are men because gosh, am I sick of some women. And here I am, in love, and with an older man. And I'm glad that everything turned out the way it has. |
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A lot of people have been telling me that I look down/tired. This past week, I've been "depressed" on and off, but I didn't think it looked obvious. Probably because I dress like a bum, gained weight since I haven't hiked in a while, and have a bored-sounding voice. Yeah, that's it. |
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The horror film junkie that I am, I've been trying to find a decent website that tells me what scary movies/shows are on television. I can't seem to find a decent one that tells me what is on regular cable. I do have FearNet, but I want more. Hell, half the time when I put the TV on, I don't watch it. I read and do homework. But I like the sound and to look up at something once in a while. Usually around this time of year, it's holiday related movies/shows or QVC. Or the news. But after all the election crap is over with, the news will be boring. Unless McCain becomes president, because then there will be news on riots. I'm not going to vote because I don't like either of the two. Someone said I should just vote for a lesser-party, but I'm too lazy to wait in line to give an inkling of hope to someone else. Deep down I want McCain to win so that there will be more excitement. Just to spite all the people around me. I'm a terrible person. All the hipsters and free-for-all'ers will amuse me, for once. I work with some Englishman who said, "If [free health care] works all over the world, it can work here in America." Then why the hell are Cubans risking their lives traversing the ocean to get to America? Why are the illegal immigrants in America working so that they can send money to their loved ones back in Cuba? Because they are not doing as well as we all hope! Yes, I watched Michael Moore's film Psycho but please keep in mind that most documentaries you will watch that are created by biased people is full of slanted, biased crap. I'm not saying that all his research and all of his film is folly. I'm just saying, it's Michael Moore, come on. If Michael Savage was to make a film, I'd be just as skeptical! It is so easy to make a film that convinces people to take a side. It is so so so easy to take a television clip of a president saying something and use it against them and make it seem like they are saying something else. And yes, I really liked the very ending of Moore's film when he was walking the streets of DC asking congressmen if they were sending their children to Iraq, only for the congressmen to avoid Moore and be embarrassed. Also. Don't quote me on this, it's something I heard. But six or eight months ago, the state of Hawaii issued all children of the state (just the children! Not the whole state!) free health care. That is, up to a few weeks ago, they had to abandon that idea because it didn't work. Now, I'm just an idiot, and I can't say that America is unable or able to do this and make everyone happy. I don't know what to say or think. Perhaps I should share a song that is appropriate for this post and this season. It's by Norah Jones. She wrote this before the last election. My Dear Country 'Twas Halloween and the ghosts were out and everywhere they'd go, they'd shout. And though, I covered my eyes, I knew they'd go away. But fear's the only thing I saw. And three day's later, was clear to all: That nothing is as scary as Election Day. But the day after is darker. |
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Since I work at B&N now, I try to read best sellers so that I can be a better saleswoman. Despite my ultra-desire to read all the quirky non-fictions gathering dust on the back shelves, I pick up quirky non-fictions up front. So far, I've read The Last Lecture, A Bold, Fresh Piece of Humanity, Righting the Mother Tongue, and now my first fiction book The Shack. I hope to spend this whole night reading it...and hopefully finishing it because I don't have much time this week. |
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One of the best feelings ever is when I'm feeling somehow (yes, somehow) depressed and then realize that I am my own hero. Only I can fix it. And who else is better than yourself to save/help yourself? |
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All the hype with Obama makes me think of the hype over Hitler...the reich singing for Der Furher. <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/08BAfKCfu74&hl=e <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/wy09UpI60F8&hl=e And this makes me think that if Obama is elected, another Randy Weaver (remember during the Clinton administration?) incident may ensue. Of course, there wasn't much hype about that incident because the media tried their absolute best to keep it under wraps. And McCain is just as shady with his smirks and as O'Reilly claimed last night, a total lack of passion. And although I don't always politically agree with O'Reilly, I will agree that these two candidates are not as passionate as I would like for them to be. Speaking of O'Reilly, I just finished his book A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity and I must say, it was an interesting read. Granted he's not the best writer, but he told "it" to me straight. In fact, I am going to e-mail him after this and tell him how I feel about his book. So, I just finished that book. I started reading a few others. From Barnes & Noble, I am borrowing Righting the Mother Tongue by David Wolman. It's basically about the history and future of the English language. I've never read the other book similar to this by Bill Bryson. Have any of you? I started reading A Book of Luminous Things: An International Anthology of Poetry edited by Czeslaw Milosz. I began reading a book of short stories called The Centaur's Son by Philip Daughtry, but didn't quite get into it, so I'm going to take it back to the library tonight. I'm going to check to see if CLP (Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh) has a book I heard about called Opal Sunset by Clive James. It's a book of poetry that was published last month. I am also reading Marilyn Hacker's book Selected Poems: 1965-1990. Picked up the newest issue of Newsweek yesterday with its very unflattering close-up photo of Sarah Palin. In a past issue, Obama is portrayed in b&w with some light shining down on him like a god. And here is Sarah Palin in all her pores, moustache, and blackheads glory. Check it out. http://www.docstoc.com/docs/1735255/Sara I'm off next Saturday! This means I finally get to go hiking again! Thank goodness. Len and I are going to the movies this weekend. What should we see? Choke Blindness An American Carol Religulous Today, I think I'm going to CLP for an hour long discussion concerning some poems by Emily Dickinson. Kevin might come along. There's a thing going on next Thursday at Your Inner Vagabond Cafe. Come see Kevin and me perform a haiku battle during the open-mic. It's pretty much just us insulting each other back and forth. Fun, no? |
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Everything has been going so well for me (classes are easy [which disturbs me], I am reading/learning crap on my own, I'm getting by, I'm in love, and I feel passionate about so many things). But there is dread in my chest and brow and I don't know why. |
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Upon speaking with a friend from high school yesterday evening, I managed to identify a very important curiosity that I encountered over the summer. We were discussing fungi and I told her about this amazing plant-like, fungi-like thing that grows in the woods near my camp. I described it as a white, seemingly transparent stalk with tendrils and no blossom. It seemed very fragile, as well. So, therefore, I thought it was a fungi. And they grew from the ground, and the ones I saw were solitary, alone. After many googlisms, we found it! And I am so excited! It is not a fungi, mind you, but a flower, indeed! They are very rare and actually do blossom! I just saw them to early in the stage. So, here's a picture of the ghost-like, beautiful Indian Pipe. |
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I am bringing ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} philmosophy back. It is not a group, but simply me talking about art and all kinds of weird stuff. In the past, it was a project for school, but I still have deep, passionate interests in the material and so therefore want to keep at it and have people engage in it. So, please join in discussion if you will! |
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Everything has been great. I love the fall, although I'm never quite dressed enough for it. Granted I'm wearing pants and a sweater right now, I'm still freezing. This "homeless" lifestyle is kind of interesting. I wouldn't say "homeless" without quotations, because I do have a place to sleep every night. It's just that I'm never really belonging anywhere or staying anywhere too long. I'm out of "home" from 7 in the morning until midnight. School has been going well, but I'm not that busy. I'm not complaining because it allows me to do research and read for leisure. I am borrowing another book from Barnes & Noble: Billy O'Reilly's A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity. I am about to finish Robert Hass' book of poetry, Time and Materials. And I'm about to read it again because I have to do a book review for it. I'm also going to try and read Naomi Shihab Nye's book 19 Varieties of Gazelle by Monday. I'm currently at a Panera cafe so that I can do an assignment for class. Thankfully I don't have to drive all the way to school today. So, when I'm done with everything here, I can go home and get under a blanket and read. And write. I'll probably pull an all-nighter to get a lot of crap done because I work all weekend. And I want to be able to work and spend time with Len instead of work and do homework. Speaking of my wonderful boyfriend, he went out today while I was at work and purchased all the stuff we need for our indoor turtle habitat. It's going to be awesome and it's all because of him. It will be a tank, but he will be building an outer-extension to the tank so that the turtles can leave the tank and go bask in a dry place. So, when I go to his place after work tomorrow, they should be inside their tank, away from the cold! I'll take pictures, I promise. So, personally, I think McCain made a fool of himself. I'm currently not up-to-date about what's going on with the debate that was supposed to happen tonight. But you know, McCain made this big deal about meeting with the president and dealing with the "financial crisis" rather than debating. When he first announced this, I agreed that it was the better thing to do. I can understand Obama, wanting to debate for the people. But come on, Obama and McCain are senators. They are getting paid to deal with crises such as this. And in the long run, dealing with such a crisis, is for the people. Now, if they were just governors, that would be a different story. The debate shouldn't have been in question. But they're both senators. So, McCain made it seem like he was going to roll up his sleeves and do some work, but he didn't do anything at the really disatrous meeting they had yesterday. Supposedly, the republicans had another plan...but if they had another plan, why didn't they discuss it at the meeting? What a mess. You know, I only read the first few pages of O'Reilly's book so far. But he said something along the lines that (and I am totally paraphrasing here) it isn't the matter of who will be the best president, but which candidate will mess up America the least. O'Reilly claims in the book to not really choose a side (hmm), although he usually leans (obviously) to the right. Blah, I am going to go do some work. |
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I am so sick of being surrounded by these leftists who will believe anything they hear. Hardcore conservatives don't get as much media-play as the liberals do. That's why I'm not complaining about them. There aren't any on my college campus that I know of. There aren't any (that I know of) where I work. My boyfriend is a conservative. I'm a nothing. I've been writing about politics a little here and there in this journal, but it isn't because I care about politics. I care about unbiased facts, and you won't get those from any news station. On my car radio, I literally have Fox News on button five and NPR on button six. I listen to both sides, but I don't have to believe them. I listen for the "facts" and interpret it on my own. I'm sick of all the brainwashing. Glenn Beck's voice gives me a headache. I'm sick of Obama mistaking his so-called "Christian" religion for Muslim. I'm sick of Sarah Palin's annoying voice. I'm sick of the horrible things Biden says (did you hear about what he said about the Deleware gas stations? Oh, and don't forget what he said about Clinton being a better running-mate than he is). And I'm sick of gas stations raising their gas prices just because some hurricane (that didn't do any oil-refinery damage) came along. Even the gas stations are brainwashing us to believe that the oil is in trouble due to natural disaster. And don't blame the oil refineries for your empty wallet. It's the people who own the gas stations who do that to you...to a point. I don't know all the laws and regulations of gas, sorry. And do I want to know? Probably. Other than all that crap, everything is fine. I'm teaching a craft in poetry class today. I'm teaching Gjertrud Schnackenberg's book Supernatural Love with some other chick. We were supposed to meet last night after my evening class, but she never showed up. I waited an hour. Hopefully we'll get to meet today before class starts. Hope everything's all right. Finished reading: Hunger at the Moon by Billy Childish So What by Taha Muhammad Ali The Flag of Childhood by Naoimi Shihab Nye. I'm going to start reading her book 19 Varieties of Gazelle. I'm going to start reading Robert Hass' Pulitzer Prize-Winning book Time & Materials. I have to write a book review about it, which should be fun, considering I like his work and that I'll be his hostess when he arrives! Um, I'm sure there is other stuff I will be reading, but I'm not too sure yet. Mmm, next time you go to Starbucks, get the Mango Orange Banana Vivanno with Green Tea. Oh my. Delicious. It's a smoothie with green tea. A bit heavy, but delicious, nonetheless. It's my breakfast. I'm here at school all day with nothing to eat but this and a banana. Wish me luck. Oh, and there's something else that irks me about people. AND I AM NOT TRYING TO OFFEND ANYONE. I'm getting really tired of people who turn all of their interests/pursuits into some sort of manifesto or revolution. It can be anything. It's like people are trying to make their one quirky interest into something phenomenal to the point where it seems fake and insincere. For instance, people who are vegans or vegetarians. Most vegans or vegetarians are the hemp-wearing, poetry-reading-going, tattooed, Goodwill-wearing, notebook-toting people. And yes, this is very stereotypical...but admit it. Take a group of "jocks" and take a group of "hipsters", and guess which group would have the highest percentage of vegans/vegetarians. You'd be safe with guessing the hipsters. Not to say that a jock can't be a member of PETA or that a hipster can't go hunting for deer this fall. But not only are they giving themselves this "image", but they also make a manifesto or revolution of it, of sorts. They'll wear the pins and just be walking advertisements for it. Let me think of another...how about cyclists? I'm in the city more and more now, and I notice all these cyclists and cyclists mingling with cyclists. It's a community, and that's nice. But it's a community that is trying to make themselves very apparent. Everyone is lumping themselves into some sort of group that they think has some sort of "cause". What? See, I'd like to meet some normal, humble, sincere people who can ride their bikes to work without having a tattoo on the back of their legs saying "share the road" (yeah, I met a guy with that tattoo). Why can't anyone be themselves while they are alone? That's another thing about these groups. They think that they are some minority and are therefore special or whatever. So, they group up as if they have enemies. Maybe they do, I don't know. But why can't people be themselves alone? If you ask me, to get into these groups and become a stereotype of sorts just means that you're not really sincere in your passion. If you can't do it alone, then where is the passion? I love to make jewelery, but I'm not in some beading group. I love to hike, but I only hike with my boyfriend. Now, I'm not against people meeting people to be passionate about what they are passionate about, but I'm sick of these holier-than-thou groups of people. God. And yes, I am aware that I am turning into a mega-bitch. And an idiot, probably. |
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Yesterday, a friend of mine from school (Teresa) and I attended one of The New Yinzer's reading at ModernFormations. The readers included Dawn Lundy Martin (poetry), Karl Hendricks (fiction), Ed Strek (poetry), and musican David Bernabo. Martin's poetry sounded very unique. My guess is that she writes with very short lines, and I found it entertaining/interesting that she also--spoke in--two word--or syllable--moments. Hendricks' short story was interesting although his characters seemed a bit stereotypical and therefore predictable. It was a funny story, though. Strek was very sick with a cough, but his poetry was something I would not mind reading on my own. Oh, and one of the best moments of the night was watching Bernabo's fingers tap the strings of his guitar. His music reminds me of the soundtrack (that I would love to own) of the movie "Into The Wild". Good traveling music. Teresa bought herself one of his CDs. Good night. |
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