tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61855352024-03-06T22:29:53.610-06:00still lifeCausing anarchy and rebelliousness while still being an exceptionally nice personahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.comBlogger764125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-58770652418990676042011-12-16T10:11:00.002-06:002011-12-16T10:28:33.713-06:00BastardBooks are clearly awesome. There are many days where I spend more time with books than I do with people, and on most of those days I'm happy about that. I tend to go through genre phases: sometimes I'm all over non-fiction, or science writing, or short stories. Lately though, it's been a large and amorphous category titled "Books that will Mess You Up". It's been a long year and in all ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-35709635664157603152011-10-13T23:12:00.008-05:002011-10-14T16:52:45.731-05:00the turning wormI got a new computer recently, or rather, an old computer that had been wiped clean and essentially restored to the capabilities of a computer from 2004, which means it was unable to do more than stare at the internet blankly and spin that damn rainbow wheel around endlessly. It’s a mac, and I’m very up front about the fact that I bought it purely for its customer service potential. I don’t ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-36386492908067632652011-09-10T22:14:00.001-05:002011-09-11T21:53:40.618-05:00what wasI remember hearing from adults when I was a kid that they would never forget what they were doing when they heard that JFK had been shot. That was ancient history by the time I was born, so it was hard for young me to understand what that moment felt like for those who lived through it--there simply hadn't been any national tragedies of that statue and media coverage and collective standstill ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-13163222110469814392011-08-23T23:09:00.004-05:002011-08-23T23:21:37.644-05:00memorialWell, this week has been truly too challenging to allow me to write like a motherfucker. Alas. Instead, I've been writing emails and long, long journal entries, and listening to early music. Alex Ross, the music critic for the New York Times, got me started with this absolutely gorgeous piece by Renaissance composer Josquin des Prez. It has done me good to listen to such beauty, this piece ofahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-75348294123829444942011-08-16T23:48:00.005-05:002011-08-17T22:30:17.885-05:00it was already late enough, and a wild nightWell, hello.
It's been a few months, yes? I could say I've been busy. It wouldn't be a lie. I've been dealing with heartbreak, talking to people, reading, making too much food, traveling, moving furniture around endlessly, adjusting to living alone again. I could use those things as an excuse but it would ring false--I did those things before. I've always done those things. So why?
I'm notahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-60372199589648502562011-05-15T22:35:00.001-05:002011-05-15T22:36:19.784-05:00you taught me the names of the stars overhead that I wrote down in my ledgerSpring in Chicago is always an uncertain affair, but this year warmth seems especially reluctant to show up, much less stick around. When I moved here almost seven long years ago—and how did it get to be that many years? Most of my adult life?—I was sort of fascinated by how apparent the seasons were. There is such a distinct difference between not only fall and winter but early fall, late ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-66042043894301781332011-04-09T10:25:00.002-05:002011-04-09T10:41:31.916-05:00back to the startI have a friend who is truly, deeply devoted to young adult fiction. It’s a genre I don’t spend much time with anymore, but I do have a section on one of my favorite bookshelves that contains some of the literature that I read as a child, books that I now turn to for comfort when life shakes me up and tosses me down. Very little is more soothing to me than revisiting these old friends, these ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-16108903986409883252011-01-24T15:07:00.004-06:002011-01-24T15:31:12.952-06:00the past, via split peasAfter a lengthy hiatus, my friend Rose-Anne and I have tentatively resurrected our tandem posting project this week. We’re starting off easy, with recipes that remind us of people.For me, there are a few dishes that sum up how I feel about cooking, about food, about what qualities—nutrition, comfort, deliciousness—I want the things that go into my body to have. Actually, they aren’t even dishes, ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-83724246299308823232011-01-09T10:07:00.003-06:002011-01-09T10:51:56.324-06:00lovecraft in tucsonI don't live in Arizona, and I haven't since 2004. My parents and my sister have left the state in the last few months, after roughly twenty years of residency, and I have one truly close friend left there. She's down in Tucson, and her facebook feed was how I heard about the shootings there yesterday.I've been trying to figure out why I feel so upset. It's an upsetting situation, of course: ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-79915069157233491502011-01-01T22:46:00.001-06:002011-01-01T22:48:13.730-06:00morning finds youNew Year’s Eve in Chicago was unseasonably, freakishly warm. When we left the apartment at 9 PM to go to a friend’s house, the outside temperature was fifty-seven degrees, like a day in late April had somehow been transplanted to the end of December. When we left the party at about 1:30, the temperature had dropped and the wind was up and I shivered all the way home, cursing myself for wearing ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-68007684980903080532010-12-14T23:39:00.002-06:002010-12-15T08:53:07.800-06:00wholly wholly whollyand kisses are a better fate than wisdomsince feeling is firstwho pays any attentionto the syntax of thingswill never wholly kiss you;wholly to be a foolwhile Spring is in the worldmy blood approves,and kisses are a better fatethan wisdomlady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry- the best gesture of my brain is less thanyour eyelids' flutter which sayswe are for each other; thenlaugh, leaning back ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-2875847906949310842010-12-01T11:58:00.002-06:002010-12-01T12:06:10.039-06:00in a moment close to nowTomorrow is my birthday. I’ll be twenty-nine years old. I never know why that’s supposed to be scary. Yeah, I’m older, but it’s one of those things that is so completely inevitable that for the most part it’s never weighed too heavily on my mind. Next year, of course, I’ll be turning thirty, so maybe that will be more difficult somehow. But hey, probably not. Mostly it’s no big thing, ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-25756590720901366452010-11-24T08:53:00.000-06:002010-11-24T08:54:35.305-06:00keeping my head upIt’s officially been almost a month since I wrote anything. It’s odd, because I remember last year and how in love I was with the feeling of writing something that felt good to write, but lately even when I do get something out—usually in my journal, as you can tell by the gap here—it feels mostly perfunctory. The joy of creation is almost completely absent. I think that lack, among other things,ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-36480374935698339412010-10-26T10:29:00.003-05:002010-10-26T11:53:16.793-05:00sugar maple turnI recently (like, yesterday) read a book by the poet/mortician Thomas Lynch, Bodies In Motion and At Rest. He speaks with eloquence, humor, and a caustic sort of understatement about death and words, how they relate and don't, what he's learned from each of them. It's quite good. I haven't read much of his poetry, but this poem was included in the book and I liked it so here it is, for you so youahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-36833454256695139022010-10-23T20:34:00.004-05:002010-10-23T21:21:23.880-05:00of soup and friendshipToday I had a genuine day off, the first in far too long. I didn't do much: read a bit, drank coffee alone at my desk--I've fashioned myself a bit of a me-corner, with photos and my computer and a notepad and a green plant that smells like limes when you rub the leaves--embroiled myself in some various forms of correspondence, and called it a day. For the first time in weeks and weeks I felt ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-51529820810237077542010-10-15T09:12:00.001-05:002010-10-15T09:13:42.118-05:00the secret garden“[S]ecrecy hides far more than what is private. A private garden need not be a secret garden; a private life is rarely a secret life.” –Sissela Bok …but what about where the private life is a secret garden and it has always been off-limits to you? And what if you respect those limits because you think you know what’s inside them? It’s you who would be keeping secrets then…” –Sue HalpernWhen I ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-89466963553733371562010-10-02T14:35:00.002-05:002010-10-02T14:38:19.758-05:00sweet homeOver the weekend I moved, of all things. We’d been looking at places, weighing the merits of a three-bedroom, a two-bedroom, or two one-bedrooms--being in a triad complicates housing, among other things--before deciding on the last option, but the move was still an almost complete surprise. We filled out an application for a one-bedroom in a designated low-income complex, which turns out to be anahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-79072887077082961152010-09-22T23:25:00.001-05:002010-09-23T22:43:33.358-05:00what we want from what we lost (Berlin, part two)My guidebook had this to say about my last museum: "Berlin's Jüdisches Museum, the largest Jewish Museum in Europe, celebrates the achievements of German Jews and their contribution to culture, art, science and other fields... [T]he exhibit also includes one section about the Holocaust, although this is by no means the museum's entire focus. In fact, what makes Berlin's Jewish museum different isahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-20950390285557279502010-09-21T00:21:00.003-05:002010-09-22T23:29:21.005-05:00one of the cities in which i loved you (Berlin, part one)In Berlin, I mainly did two things: I walked to museums, and then I walked around inside of museums. Travelling alone made me realize how many of my prior travels had been based around themes like "let's find a good place to eat lunch" or "let's sit around and talk to each other about what we see and then maybe have a beer". Without those fallback positions, I discovered pretty quickly that I hadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-81286331090597751682010-09-19T23:08:00.003-05:002010-09-22T23:32:44.073-05:00falling downJust a brief update, although I hope to really write something tonight. It's 11 PM and I'm not even remotely tired, so... We'll see. At any rate, I wrote something for my friend Louise recently. It's about my terrible horrible no good etc. etc. trip to Germany, and the book that put it all in perspective by being incredibly awesome. Read my thing, and then read the book. It's called The Spirit ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-34680967086396889112010-09-09T21:10:00.005-05:002010-09-11T10:01:28.762-05:00when it rainsDear friends,(Or, you know, strangers who googled "naked girls and me" or whatever.)It's been more than a month since I wrote anything on here. That really sucks. But can you believe me when I say that lately I don't seem to have more than the bare minimum of words available to me, that anything beyond that seems like an absolutely overwhelming? It's been a long and exhausting month since Berlin.ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-66857735671562524002010-08-05T12:02:00.003-05:002010-08-05T12:20:29.467-05:00windToday was my last day in Berlin. There will be more details later, but the important thing for this moment is that today I splurged and rented a bike, which was one of the best ideas I've had in a while. As I rode around on my clunky cruiser--too short, crooked handlebars, no helmet, but wonderful nonetheless--I felt the sense of freedom that always comes with the wind in my hair and the groundahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-46186935137046609542010-08-02T03:09:00.001-05:002010-08-02T03:10:40.915-05:00i say halloHallo!I'm in a hostel in Berlin. (I have three minutes left, so goodbye, eloquence! Also proofreading.) This trip has been indescribable so far, in good and bad ways. I've lost my wallet, missed planes, almost cried at more consecutive rehearsals than is strictly healthy, but I also (as part of my badass quintet) won an international performance prize. And now I'm in Berlin, so that's ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-24295229117384005052010-07-13T09:01:00.001-05:002010-07-13T09:02:33.927-05:00food and sex and good writingWell, okay, maybe this is the last thing before I go. My friend Louise started a book blog, and I revised something I'd written about Dorothy Allison for it, and it's posted here. Thanks, and see you in Germany!ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-2841254896276956342010-07-09T18:10:00.003-05:002010-07-09T18:35:14.736-05:00i still only travel by foot and by foot it's a slow climbSo here's another reason I haven't been writing: I'm going to Germany. For a month, almost, and I leave six days from now. I'm pretty sure I forgot to mention this, but my amazing new music group--which I am a part of because I took Music and Gender at NU with the founder and she later looked me up on myspace, of all places--got accepted to a fancy-schmancy music festival just outside of ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com5