Sunday, April 13, 2008
An old poem.
I.
Today in the bathroom mirror I traced
the outlines of your furrowed visage and (my bleared eyes
brought us back to the living room on Three Kingsboro Avenue:
I, stoned, in that burlap chair.
You, still, on the couch)
the scar that would have been
if your neck had healed.
II.
Today felt like autumn.
Nose ruddy from north winds blowing through Avenue C:
I thought of those silly incantations in October afternoons,
urging drafts to emulsify—vivify
your relics.
III.
Today I read Walt Whitman, in honor of you.
Ruminations of his springs as my falls.
His lilacs, my begonias and grub bugs.
Graybeard's empyrean sky, my garden
where three-quarters of your ashes lie.
[October 2nd, 2003 Notation]
This October marks the beginning of the eighth stanza of my changed life. I am sure I will not 'cease my song for thee' as long as memory persists.
_________________________________________
Erica L. Dow 2003 5:29 AM
Friday, April 11, 2008
in loco parentis.
a colleague of mine has had a pretty rocky year. most are unsympathetic, and by far, the students are the ones who are the most ruthless. why is it, that we as teachers, can be so accommodating and forgiving of all of our students' problems and attitudes, but when we have a "bad" day we are no longer categorized as humans, but as monsters?
how is it that a student can yell at me for something that they did wrong, and not understand the legitimate consequences of his or her own poorly deliberated (and often unhealthy) decisions? why is that my seniors (my favorites), the most mature, the ones closest to plunging into the real world of it all, can be so hurtful?
Monday, April 07, 2008
a funeral.
recently, i read a blog by a talented individual about her experience disposing the artistic extensions of who she was, to embrace the person she is today. her blog made me think about what part of the old me I have been holding on to, even in the latter part of this new decade of age. i thought about whether or not i would have the cojones to rid myself of the only artistic expression that i was once (and maybe still am?) good at, but i’ve come to realize that i could never part with any of my writings, as much of it deals with my own grief regarding my dead father.
i’ve been thinking long and hard about what it is that i would like to bury, in hopes that a new me can grow from the dead weight of the old me. i decided that i would like to bury my silence and submissive attitude.
it has been far too easy for me to be quiet for all these years, silent in my own company, and painfully so in the presence of others. it is far to easy to say nothing even when i do have something to say. and,i do have something to say; i always have something to say. so today i will bury this part of the old me and embrace what it is that is now a part of the new me.
i want to thank this person (and her blog) for sharing her own experience and insight, as it has greatly helped me in discovering that we are all works in progress and that sometimes it is okay to just let go.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
new goal:
honesty, remix:
i will forever remain misunderstood if i allow my voice to be muted for the sake of other peoples' voiced opinions and or feelings. i will never be heard (or read, in this case), if i let my words fall to the knotted pit of my anxious stomach, only to be digested internally with the occasional flare up of heartacheburn. further, my new goal is not intended for the sole purpose of stirring shit up, or to exercise my right to be a bitch. its purpose is to get everything inside of me, out.
Monday, March 24, 2008
an unhealthy relationship with a blog.
my not-so-secret obsession is lurking profiles and reading blogs. this has been a voyeuristic habit of mine since the early days of livejournal. i don’t know what it is about blogs, but i’m hooked beyond a normal degree. i think i enjoy gaining insight to other’s lives, not to fulfill some empty space of dissatisfaction in my own, but perhaps to gauge my day to day experiences and emotions against another’s and, in totality, gauge my own sanity, or the times there is a lack thereof.
i’m obsessed with a local blogger whose life is an absolute fucking train wreck, and i cannot, for the life me, stop reading this person’s blog (and this person is not a "friend" in the myspace sense of the word, or even in the in-real-life sense of the word). i dislike this person with many fibers of my being, so why is it that i am glued to his or her blog? do i enjoy watching his or her plagued life unfold before my eyes? no, because it is beyond anti-climatic. do i wish ill will on he or she? no, because he or she has enough of his or her own to deal with. does this person make me feel secure within my own sanity? a little. i’ll tell you why i’m hooked: i’ve never been witness to such a disaster of a person in my entire life (textually and literally). never have i had such an experience to meet and read about a person who has so little regard for other people--his or her behavior is despicable, dehumanizing, and shamefully ostentatious.
what angers me the most is that the limits of this person’s lack of tact go well beyond personal interactions on a day to day basis--it is broadcast through online social networking sites. and i may be a hypocrite, as i stand a lesson or two in keeping private matters private, but i pride my self in being honest, careful, and somewhat cryptic in my textual deliveries of my somewhat suppressed emotional states.
this person’s blog perpetuates the severe dislike i already had for this person, so why do i willingly and faithfully read this blog on a day to day basis? because it reinforces not only what is wrong with this world, but makes me appreciate all the rights.
Monday, February 25, 2008
i don’t fit in.
and i probably never will. i know this. and, i am perfectly okay with this.
Monday, January 28, 2008
winter thaw.
a few things, which i would like to type out for my future self's sake:
one. i love the warmth and smell of my dingy dog so much it makes my heart melt.
two. i wrote a poem last week, whilst the students were taking part two of the english regents examination.
three. i hate my job.
four. i'm going to attempt writing a book. it will most likely turn out to be a novella. it has everything to do with item number three, but it will be partially fictionalized.
five. scary mansion sounds like cat power. and cat power's new album sucks.
six. i hate your fucking surveys, so stop, please.
seven. i like to make lists.
Sunday, December 02, 2007
Sometimes I question my profession...
Current mood: calm.
Currently listening : I’m Sorry That Sometimes I’m Mean
By: Kimya Dawson
Release date: 02 December, 2003
..and what i love.
When I grow up I'd like to be a(n):
Radio jockey.
Veterinarian.
Writer.
Cosmetologist.
Social worker.
Massage therapist.
Actor (again).
As for hobbies, I'd like to:
Volunteer for a local pet rescue.
Be a seller on Ebay.
Learn to play guitar from Jacob.
Construct a four square team or kickball team (high school coach).
Knit.
Monday, October 15, 2007
if you’re racist... that scares me.
if you're sexist, xenophobic, and or homophobic, that scares me too.
scares me into being angry at you. and, not liking you. don't be an idiot.
just sayin'.
Friday, October 12, 2007
black francis and the christmas tree shop.
what the hell happened to black francis? captain pasty is THE WORST song ever.
and, i think the christmas tree shop should be burnt down. ALL of them.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
a deer, i hit.
i was very prepared for a long and eventful day. i woke up at ten of five this morning. i coffee'd, i showered, i packed for the gym, i packed for parent-teacher night. i left at around 6:30 this morning. i and my automobile traveled down state street, through the light that intersects 30A. i drove past hussman, and i drove past the forrester's club. and i almost made it to the sign that denotes the change of speed limit from forty miles per hour to fifty-five miles per hour. but, i did not make it, which could have been my saving grace.
a pack of my favorite large-sized furry friends--a mother, a father, and child--traveled across the paved way through the agragian panorama of mayfield. i did not hit the brakes hard, as the road was slick from a damp night. but in this instance brakes would not have stopped me from hitting the stalwart hind-end of one of the deers. all i saw, in my periphery, was the deer flip, as the other two ran off to the sanctity of the woods.
i just remember shaking uncontrollably, but i was not hurt (thankfully).
this experience made me think about why people hunt. it seems so foolish. i feared that the deer i hit would die (a driver of the local transportation system of gloversville, who witnessed the entire scene told me the hit deer ran off). i felt an overwhelming sensation of grief thinking about the more-than-likely-fatally-injured animal and thought: why would anyone purposely kill for sport? it seems so asinine and cruel.
this entry was sort of tangential. for those of you that are worried about me, i'm fine, though my nerves are shot.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Hulk Hogan and Bruce Springsteen.
Current mood: tired
Category: Life
Currently listening : Zeitgeist
By: Smashing Pumpkins
Release date: 10 July, 2007
i feel horribly guilty even admitting that when i was much, much younger i yearned for a famous dad. my famous dream dads were: hulk hogan and bruce springsteen. hulk hogan, back in the day seemed so outrageous, yet down to earth. i have recently divorced my dream of having hogan as a dad--his show "hogan knows best" dashed my childhood dreams; he has has become too hollywood and oily (and tan!) and extremely outrageous, to a sickening degree.
bruce, on the other hand, is still unbelievably amazing.
but, neither can compare to the father i lost over twelve years ago.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Working.
Well, I went to work on Monday and promised myself I would return Tuesday and Wednesday. I broke my promise to myself. And here I sit wishing I went in. What prevented me? Sound sleep with dreams of neck biting zombies, sexing snakes, and mentally perverse murderers.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
september twenty-fourth.
[insert picture of laproscopy]
Saturday, July 28, 2007
one of the worst feelings.
at least for me, is to be slighted by loved ones when simple acts of consideration can make all the difference in one's day.
i'm just menstrual, i suppose.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
new doctor.
i finally got a new doctor, as my last appointment with the previous doctor was a train wreck. bad news is that i pretty much have endometriosis. and my cyst is still hanging around. i have an appointment with the new doctor on the first of august. wish me luck.
i missed the lemonheads last saturday, and a joyce carol oates reading at skidmore on the eleventh.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
blogs.
i read them and now i have gone back to reading livejournals too. thank goodness i will be working on kevin's project soon.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Future plans, summer plans.
So I am opting not to teach summer school, as I told my friend Natasha I believe the abuse that summer school represents could be likened to the torture one would receive in the Malebolge of Dante's Inferno. I hope I get to work the days I put in for at the school, as the pay is hella and it is at my leisure and can be done from home (I love the Internet).
So on this list of summer plans slash ideas:
1. A trip to Animal Land (shut up, I want to pet the llamas).
2. THE MOTHER-EFFIN GREAT ESCAPE AND SPLASH WATER KINGDOM.
3. Field hockey summer league in Gloversville or maybe a field hockey team in Albany (which I might add: the first scrimmage is this Sunday at 6:30 at UAlbany, on the turf).
4. Gym membership or some place that offers yoga. I really want to do Bikram yoga on the regular, but I am unaware of where I should actually go.
5. An all ladies trip to a spa in Saratoga.
6. Lotsa horse-ball and bowling.
7. Fixing my Peugeot inner-tube and blazing trails on two wheels throughout the Kingdom of Fulton County.
6. A summer bartending gig (maybe Saratoga). I did bartend in SoHo for two years whilst living in the city. I am no Tom Cruise from Cocktail, but I am fast and can make a innovative cocktail in a minute.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
On seeing a specialist.
All of my doctor experiences in Gloversville, aside from my pediatric care, have been pitiful and confusing: antiquated tools of the trade, as in ultrasound machines from '84 and filing systems on computers older than I (Commodore); cramped dirty rooms; and megalomaniacal local doctors.
What it is inside me is not known. I have a fourth appointment in a month regarding the size of my (it belongs to me; I have taken ownership of this undesirable abnormal character) ovarian cyst, with free flowing browned blood swimming inside. My last appointment the doctor had a "hypothetical" conversation with me regarding endometriosis and my "potential" issues with infertility. All of which was grounded in speculation, as hard evidence in the form of testing does not exist. His solution to my health issue was to sit and wait and agonize for one more month.
I should see a specialist outside of this area.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
on being tired.
it seems these days that if i tell someone i'm tired, the retort i generally receive is "wait 'til you have kids." hi, i have kids. fifty-six of them to be exact. and last year i had eighty seven, and the year before that, over one hundred and five. the way things are going, anatomically speaking, i might not be able to have kids, so one: it bothers me when people say this because of my recent issues with health; and two: it is rude to assume that i don't know the meaning of tired considering my life, personal, and professional interests have everything to do with children and young adults.
Saturday, May 05, 2007
I’m just a quiet person.
I know some of you think I have been quiet and maybe sort of "off" lately. Maybe you think I don't like you because I don't have a lot to say—this is wrong. I'm just a quiet person.
I've never felt comfortable talking around people; I have never felt comfortable with having friends. For more than ten years I have been on my own, for the most part. In high school I had a small group of close friends, but watched those relationships either fade or disintegrate for one reason or another (college, time, distance damage, arguments, et cetera). In college I had one solid friend, but after graduation our relationship became diluted by our post-college interests and careers. My early years in New York City and Boston were clouded with getting to know these new places—and I wasn't in these places long enough to establish any friendships. The last few years in New York yielded one solid friendship with a colleague and since my relocation to upstate we have lost touch too.
I have Jacob and his wonderful family, Tyler, and my family and I am satisfied with these things—and I don't mind sharing the wealth because each are amazing and intoxicating and their energy needs to be shared with others. But, I'm not ready to share too much of myself with anyone outside these things just yet. I'm nervously shy, complicated (who isn't), emotional, and quietly contemplative; I don't want you to confuse these aspects of my personality by equating me with a bitch or think that I am judging you.
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Memento Mori: Loki
Yesterday, almost home, from my tiring hour commute from work, my mother called to discuss and weep, the decision she and Ron made to put Loki down, as he was very ill during the night. She told me he was euthanized at 10:30 in the morning and they had plans to bury his body (as opposed to shipping him off to an Albany crematorium) just beyond the small tree farm, slightly before the wood of their ever-expansive acreage.
I won't spare the details. My mother woke in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and returned to bed. It is customary for Loki to follow anyone he feels the need to protect, even if the distance is a few feet. Both returned to sleep. But Ron woke in the middle of the night startled by a strange smell and woke my mother and they both found Loki lying in a pool of his own tar-like feces. They took him outside so he could eliminate more without embarrassment, cleaned him up, and fixed him up a resting spot in the garage. I doubt if any of them slept.
In the morning my brother brought up his mini-van to transport Loki to the veterinarian. I was told Loki had a large tumor in his stomach and a tumor on his spleen; his blood work was far from copacetic.
We got Loki shortly after my father died. He was the best thing for us at the time, as we no longer could mope about when there was a puppy to look after. He was good for all of us; a good companion that forced us to stop grieving once in a while. He was an integral part of my post-pubescent existence. He was my furry four-legged protector and constant shadow.
After eleven years it is natural for a family to move from one stage of life to other stages. I went to college, moved about the Northeast, settled in New York City for more than three years before moving back Upstate to be closer to my family and to Jacob. My mother found love again, remarried, and relocated a few towns over. My brother has been preserving my childhood memory of "home," found love, and is a loving father of two and a soon-to-be husband. With all the changes in our family dynamic, Loki was our constant—the tangible furry glue of a once three-member family who had lost their fourth. Yesterday I felt like my memories of what used to be, what once was, were gone; that without Loki to remind me of my sixteen year old self and grueling depressive years to follow I would not know what to turn to when memories are needed.
But memories never really expire—the sound of my father's voice faded long ago, but this does not mean I don't remember his words. I will never have that midnight black shadow of Loki to follow me from room to room, but I will never forget him and what he represents in the grander scale of things. But, I will surely miss him; he was a good boy.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
ge commercials make me laugh.
they sure do.
i have two doctor's appointments in the next two weeks to clarify the length of my life i'm sure.
Thursday, April 05, 2007
ovarian cyst.
this might be too much information about ms. dow than you would care to know. know this: i have a cyst on one of my ovaries. but, i really think my ovary has sprouted arms and is punching me, repeatedly, in the gut. or it is dancing, drunk, wildly, around my fallopian tube.
Sunday, April 01, 2007
Air.
In the very early mornings and in the early evenings I enjoy spending more time in the yard with Tyler. It is because of the air—crisp and intoxicating.
I remember living off of Houston and between Avenue C and D. Waking to the smells of exhaust filtering through my south bound window and walking home from bartending in the wee hours of the morning, disgusted more by the smell of dirty air than the foul sticky smell of dried alcohol and cigarette smoke that clung to my clothes and hair. On Twenty-ninth Street, just off of Fourth Avenue, the same dingy highway-like air made me want to die as my hand griped my inhaler.
Another reason I am happy about my move: air.
Friday, March 23, 2007
also, i like to read blogs.
even if i don't know you. i would read livejournals all day, but now it's myspace blogs. if you have a tracker i'm not stalking you. i just like blogs.
----------
a dream about dying. i had today. and i woke up all tears.
the sequence of the dream images leading up to the "death scene" is confusing, but i ended up in a vestibule of a house, perhaps a rustic cabin. i was accompanied by a host, and at this point it escapes me whether or not this host was human or animal. i'm thinking it was a human, as he (not she) spoke to me in standard american english. i was also surrounded by a grey and white kitten and what i remember to be a rabbit who told me he (yes, he) rode bulls. i do believe the kitten represents the non-verbal communication of love as i was asked to mimic its actions, which of course consisted of nuzzling against me, the host, and the rabbit, whilst purring. the rabbit, who happened to also speak standard american english, told me the hardest challenges he endured in his lifetime was riding bulls. i think this is linked, metaphorically, to the challenges we all have in life (juxtaposed, of course, to what i will now refer to as the "kitten" experience we all long for when faced with tough challenges). the rabbit suggested to me that another good outlet to the feeling associated with being challenged (frustration) is to dance it off. i remember in my dream i closed my eyes and wriggled to a the beat of deep sadness i seem to hold in my heart in my conscious life.
after the lectures, the dancing, and the nuzzling (it happened in this order) my host was about to tell me it was "time to go." i told him i was aware of what was happening (although i am positive he, nor the others, were trying to be tricksy) , even though i did not want to go through with it.
he opened the door to the "outside" world, which of course offered its light to the darkness of the vestibule. i remember i asked my host if it was okay to be scared. he replied that it was perfectly okay to be scared, but assured me there was nothing to be afraid of. i asked him if i would have just as many friends on the other side, to which he replied "of course. you will have as many friends as you need."
before i walked through the threshold, i woke up (crying).
Sunday, March 18, 2007
two excellent movies.
i recommend the following:
brick
and
half nelson
Monday, March 12, 2007
built by wendy.
wendy mullin i love your clothes, but why so pricey? design a line for target.
my wallet hates you wendy.
---------
the tale of the winter piglet. i cannot stop eating. even when i am not hungry i still eat. i dream of ice cream while i eat cookies. of bagels when i eat muffins. food is all i want. all. the. time.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
target and clothes.
when i moved to new york city, four years ago, i discovered the glory of target. i became an avid disciple--namely, for clothes. to this day i still get most of my clothes from target. i am extremely tickled by the the design for all program they have implemented. i have loved all the go designers, save for maybe two (the past winter season selection was disgusting).
i am so happy that proenza schouler is designing affordable (super cheap prices, but great quality) clothes for target. my only issue with them is the season they have chosen to design for. all the vibrant colors make me want to die (save for the purple pencil skirt)--i only wished they designed for the fall season. their fall clothing is amazing (proenza schouler fall 2005)
Saturday, February 10, 2007
mark strand poem
"Coming To This"
We have done what we wanted.
We have discarded dreams, preferring the heavy industry
of each other, and we have welcomed grief
and called ruin the impossible habit to break.
And now we are here.
The dinner is ready and we cannot eat.
The meat sits in the white lake of its dish.
The wine waits.
Coming to this
has its rewards: nothing is promised, nothing is taken away.
We have no heart or saving grace,
no place to go, no reason to remain.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
dog babies and homework.
i was on the couch last night. jacob was doing his homework and i said:
"tyler would be the worst mommy. she'd probably eat her kids."
tyler will never have babies, unless by miracle, which made me sort of sad. maybe she would be a good mother? but, i'm still convinced she'd mouth atleast one of them.
----------
i'm so hungry i could eat ten biggy iggy ice cream sandwiches from stewart's.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Naps.
I haven't been taking them as much as my body yearns for them.
I take them when I am tired.
I take them when I am depressed because I'd rather sleep than tap into hatred.
I take them when I long for company when Jacob is not around. Tyler is warm and snores like Jacob too.
---------
On another note altogether, why do people seem sketchy? Maybe I am paranoid.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
also, a poem rather, an excerpt:
what are words, i want to ask you, what
is clarity and why do words keep burning
a century later, though the earth
weighs so much?
from "a talk with friedrich nietzsche" by adam zagajewski.
--------
antigone. i'm going to watch this movie in the absence of my other half. then i will gouge my eyes out in reverence.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
My Chelsea students...
I just want to say these things: I miss you all (even the ones who drove me nuts--you know who you are) and I am proud of you all. Class of 2008, you are the best group of young adults, ever.
Friday, December 29, 2006
shaking hands with a genius.
i went to applebee's and had kettle (tavern) chips smothered with cheese and bacon. i wish i invented this dish.
Sunday, December 17, 2006
my heart attack.
salmon wrapped in bacon topped with cheese. best. dinner. ever.
atleast today ended on a good note. this weekend was abysmal.
--------
for mary... your profile makes my computer freeze:
[insert absent image of dancing robot]
Saturday, December 09, 2006
friend.
you know, it has been about seven years since i had a good best friend. i had natasha, but after college we grew apart and now she lives in scotland with her husband and dog. i became close with nikki in brooklyn as we lived together, briefly, and co-taught together for two years at chelsea. and here i am, in this bleak town and i feel pretty lonely. maybe that is why i liked living in new york: i was always too busy to be lonely. here i have more time on my hands than i can actually deal with and i find myself sleeping a good chunk of it away because i'm so blah (minus the time spent with jacob).
Saturday, December 02, 2006
esouh.
i want to puke all over myself.
Monday, November 27, 2006
crap carp prac parc arcp
Last night I zoned out during the shittiest movie ever, "The DaVinci Code," and for moments I truly thought I was a clairvoyant, as I seemed to see clearly into my doomy future where I only wore sweatpants, ate noodles with butter, and lamented to Jacob that shampoo and soap should be separate showering entities and or luxuries.
This house shit has my brain on the fritz and I wonder if we can really do this without going stark-raving loonie. I think to myself: "I have to do this; I am twenty seven. I have no babies, I cannot rent forever..I am an adult, right?"
What if I had stayed in Brooklyn? What would it have been like? The traveling would tear us apart. Now that I am here will our obsessive-compulsive, fixative habits make us want to bounce off each other like walking padded rooms, or will we just stick together like glue and have our insecurities co-mingle in an emotional tick-oriented bliss?
I can speculate about what it would have been like to have stayed in Brooklyn, but what I have learned is that love is worth more than a twelve-grand pay cut and feeling severely uncomfortable, socially, in this insular town--it is transcendent.
Friday, November 24, 2006
I should have stayed in Brooklyn.
Sometimes I think this.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Slang.
One thing I miss about being in the city is slang. Someone used the phrase dead-ass in class the other day (in an awkward manner no less--it sounded less like one huffy fast deadass and more like dead-pause-pause-pause-asssssss) and I felt like telling him that phrase is so beat these days. But how would he know? What is hip here was hip more than two years ago down there. I don't even want to get into music or the style of clothes.
Yes, I used the word hip. Shut up.
Friday, October 27, 2006
On Walking Dogs.
Current mood: annoyed
Currently listening: Mule Variations
By: Tom Waits
Release date: 27 April, 1999
Walking dogs should be done, always, with leashes. Aside from my roommates' dog that happens to be the most docile and oblivious dog I know to date, all dogs should be walked with a leash. I will even say that any dog walker walking a dog without a leash is full-fledged moron. My case in point: yesterday afternoon, after arriving at my apartment to pick up some things for a night of grading at JV's while he was in class, I witnessed a small dog (a size-challenged breed I personally abhor) being attacked by to unleashed dogs. If it wasn't bad enough watching a small dog being mauled by some feral-looking, hick-bred dog, compound this image with a wire-hanger abortion scream coming from a young girl still holding onto the leash of her small dog. Then to add to the chaotic cacophony of hell-hound barks and anti-orgasmic screams, picture the potential hick-breeder, but most certainly hick-owner, of these ravenous, feral-looking dogs yelling out commands and kicking about like a Nazi war solider, all of which the dogs did not respond to. I mean, I will admit it: I hate small dogs. There is no room in our Darwinist society for small dogs, but they do exist, sadly, and they should have at least the minimal right to be walked around in a safe environment by owners who should wear no fear against unleashed animals. There is also no room in our Darwinist society for morons, especially those specific types of morons who own dogs and choose not to walk them on leashes. Sadly, these morons exist and I have no solution to remedy the error of their moronic ways, but I sure hope someone does and perhaps their fate will be in the form of some Hades-like Malebolge that awaits them in after-life.
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Sunday, January 4, 2009
eleven.
Monday, March 28th, 2005
Time: 8:45 pm.
horizontal rain won.
Saturday, March 26th, 2005
Subject: e-mail.
Time: 5:36 pm.
yo ms d whats good its ralphy i was just wondering if u have n e work i can do to atleast pass your class with a 65 if you do holla at me ight
Friday, March 4th, 2005
Time: 7:40 pm.
Cold was the night, hard was the ground
They found her in a small grove of trees
Lonesome was the place where Georgia was found
She's too young to be out
On the street.
Why wasn't God watching?
Why wasn't God listening?
Why wasn't God there for
Georgia Lee?
Ida said she couldn't keep Georgia
From dropping out of school
I was doing the best that I could
But she kept runnin away from this world
These children are so hard to raise good
Why wasn't God watching?
Why wasn't God listening?
Why wasn't God there for
Georgia Lee?
Close your eyes and count to ten
I will got and hid but then
Be sure to find me. I want you to find me
And we'll play all over
We will play all over again
There's a toad in the witch grass
There's a crow in the corn
Wild flowers on a cross by the road
And somewhere a baby is crying
For her mom
As the hills turn from green back
To gold
Why wasn't God watching?
Why wasn't God listening?
Why wasn't God there for
Georgia Lee?
Saturday, February 26th, 2005
Time: 10:44 am.
vacation is almost over. school is almost over. less than four months.
please recommend any cheap vacationing spots for two, for the summer months.
Wednesday, February 16th, 2005
Time: 7:32 pm.
NEW YORK—Teach For America, a national program that recruits recent college graduates to teach in low-income rural and urban communities, has devoured another ethnic-studies major, 24-year-old Andy Cuellen reported Tuesday.
"Look, the world is a miserable place," said Cuellen, a Dartmouth graduate who quit the TFA program Monday morning. "All people—even children—are just nasty animals trying to secure their share of the food supply. I don't care how poor or how rich you are, that's just a fact. I'm sorry, but I have better things to do than zoo-keep for peanuts."
Just one of the 12,000 young people TFA has burned through since 1990, Cuellen was given five weeks of training the summer before he took over a classroom at P.S. 83 in the South Bronx last September.
"I walked into that school actually thinking I could make a difference," said Cuellen, who taught an overflowing class of disadvantaged 8-year-olds. "It was trial by fire. But after five months spent in a stuffy, dark room where the chalkboard fell off the wall every two days, corralling screaming kids into broken desks, I'm burnt to a crisp."
Cuellen said his TFA experience "taught him a lot about hopelessness."
"The cities are fucked. The suburbs are fucked. The whole country is fucked," Cuellen said. "And there's not a goddamned thing you or anyone can do about it. Anyone who says otherwise is selling something. Or trying to get you to teach kids math."
According to Dartmouth literature, as a member of the ethnic-studies department, Cuellen learned "to empower students of color to move beyond being objects of study toward being subjects of their own social realities, with voices of their own."
Teach For America executive director Theo Anderson called ethnic-studies departments "a prime source of fodder."
"Oh, I'd say we burn through a hundred or so ethnic-studies majors each year," said Anderson, pointing to a series of charts showing the college-major breakdown of TFA corps members. "They tend to last a little longer than women's studies majors and art-therapy students, but Cuellen got mashed to a pulp pretty quickly. It usually takes ethnic-studies majors another year to realize that they're wasting their precious youth on a Sisyphean endeavor."
Continued Anderson: "Of course, we don't worry about it too much. Every year, there's a fresh crop to throw in the grinder. As we speak, scores of apple-cheeked students are hearing about TFA for the first time."
According to Anderson, a small portion of these students will lose interest after hearing horror stories from program alumni.
"But the majority of them will march on like cattle to the slaughter, thinking that pure determination and hope can change young lives," Anderson said. "I can hear their footsteps now, marching toward our offices like lemmings to a cliff. And believe me, we're ready for 'em."
Cuellen said he applied to TFA in search of a "character-building experience."
"I knew that teaching in a severely under-funded inner-city school would be challenging, but I wanted to get out into the real world," Cuellen said. "Well, breaking up fistfights between 8-year-olds all day long, I got a real ugly view of reality. Do you want to know reality? Look at a dog lying dead in the gutter. That's reality."
Although Cuellen quit the program early, his mother said he was with TFA long enough for it "to crack open his bones and suck out the marrow inside."
"Andy is a ghost," Beverly Cuellen said. "Those [TFA] people beat the idealism out of him, then they stomped on him while he lay there gasping for air."
TFA regional coordinator Sandra Richman said it is common to blame the TFA employees for the organization's high plow-through rate.
"Should I have said something to wake those kids up sooner?" Richman said, crushing out her seventh cigarette. "Probably. But listen, no one can tell you that you can't make a difference. It's something you have to figure out for yourself."
"You can only do so much," Richman added. "After a couple years of trying to teach our applicants about how difficult and depressing their lives will inevitably be—no matter what they choose to do for money—I just got burnt out. In the end, you've gotta resign yourself to failure and move on with your life."
Saturday, February 12th, 2005
Subject: is wangster a word?
Time: 10:24 pm.
wow. so i was hired and trained to teach this ninth grade ramp-up to literacy class, which is prescribed to almost every junior high school and high school in new york city. if you have not a clue as to what it is, it is a course designed to "ramp-up" students to higher reading levels. if little jorge joins the ninth grade community with a fourth-grade reading level, my job is to get him to a higher reading level (not necessarily that of a ninth grade reading level). our mantra is the seven habits of the proficient reader: activating schema (text-to-self, text-to-text, text-to-word); creating images/visualizing; asking questions; making inferences; making predictions; monitoring for meaning (using fix-up strategies); and summarizing, synthesizing, and retelling.
with this mantra, i am to read-aloud, yes, read-aloud to my youngsters as they follow along with their own copy of whatever text i push on them.
so.
i've ditched the program for a bit to teach my little flowers poetry and the fundaments of writing a research paper.
i've created a "poem a day" project for my little roses, and boy o'fucking boy do i have some neat poems to share with you in the days to come! here is a little sample:
(background info: theme, individuality (me, myself and i). purpose, to inform. audience, young adults. mood, serious. form, eight lines with some sort of rhyming pattern)
i like math class
alot of girls got fat ass
i am the master
anything he write i do it faster
i sometime get in trouble
but i always have a double.
Monday, January 31st, 2005
Subject: this just in.
Time: 10:04 pm.
i hate english teachers.
Saturday, January 22nd, 2005
Subject: HA!
Time: 10:41 am.
[insert picture of young ashley judd]
[insert picture of young erica dow's acting i.d. card]
Friday, January 21st, 2005
Subject: i just want to say.
Time: 6:43 pm.
i'm one lucky gal.
Saturday, January 8th, 2005
Time: 6:23 pm.
i felt better! i went back to teaching. but now, i feel shitty again. i cannot shake the heats. i'll blame the kids.
adam and i forfeited a trip to peekskill because of the weather. so today was full of naps and mopping. as he tinkers around on his computer, burning away copies of cds, i am getting my sunday work load in now.
guh ( i'm pretty backed up in grading.
save me.
Wednesday, January 5th, 2005
Subject: delirious.
Time: 2:33 pm.
is it the flu that makes me feel this way? or all the medicine.
Wednesday, November 17th, 2004
Subject: Patience, and lack thereof.
Time: 7:00 pm.
That is my summation. I feel like my patience is waning because it is perpetually tested every week, day, hour, minute, and second. Where once I found myself pliable I now find myself stiff, somewhat hardened to the environment around me. Sometimes I can hear my own bones creak and my hair shooting at the root freezing to white.
Today I asked a fellow art academy teacher this:
“Do they get better?”
He replied as follows:
“No…”
Followed by the longest, most dramatic caesura I have ever encountered, and then:
“…but you will.”
Gah! That’s not what I wanted to hear. I wanted to hear that my students would eventually yield, that they would lie down and play dead at the demands of their teacher. What the hell is this anarchy?
Is anarchy so pure that those that possess the quality therein don’t even understand the meaning and concept and history? What the hell do they need to rebel against? All I’ve shown them has been tough-love, tolerance, and guidance. And what do they do? They make me feel sad, too often, at the end of the day.
Will it, if not them or I, get better?
_________________________________
I will refer, again, to the time when a colleague told me, flatly, to “Just stop caring.” And later in the day hearing a similar resonance of fucking idiocy from another peer: “Teachers aren’t going to change the world.”
Fuck you. Fuck the both of you. Fuck your dim-witted lack of ideals. Why the fuck are you teaching? Leave the miserable to wrestle with the ethic and morale of teaching and get a fucking telemarketing job if you don’t care. Push papers across desks if you don’t want to perpetuate change in the world of [academic] complacency.
_____________
If this is the disillusionment phase, I have hit it. And hit it hard. I think some good teas and a nice Thanksgiving break will pull me out of this sluggish lull of the winter blues and the poisonous waters of my buckled patience.
Monday, November 15th, 2004
Time: 5:33 pm.
in my twenty five years i have never experienced a day like sunday. i mean it when i say it was the best birthday that i've ever had. sugar-free chocolate cheesecake with sugar free whipped cream. beer and wings at croxley ales. photobooth pictures at seven b. ballooned kitchen floor. shiny birthday banner. they say it's your birthday. on repeat. unicorn plates, napkins, cups, and mostly importantly, hats. pin the tail on the donkey. kerplunk.
sound special? it was. and so is he.
Sunday, November 14th, 2004
Subject: merry christmas!
Time: 9:12 am.
[insert broken image of something i don't remember]
Saturday, November 13th, 2004
Subject: also. this is fucking amazing. hello wallpaper.
Time: 12:27 pm.
[insert awesome perry bible comic indicating unicorn power]
Time: 11:33 am.
yesterday was the sort of day that made me question just about everything in my life.
i stepped away from it all with a cigarette in the rain.
why does this kid* make me angry? how does a child make me angry?
______________
this always makes me feel better:
you're the pincard, you're
the lifeguard, you're the
information guy, but things
look much bigger on the
knees, on your knees.
miss the signal, miss the
signpost, lose the access to
it all. and all of a sudden
you are one with the freaks.
Tuesday, November 9th, 2004
Time: 6:29 am.
chan marshall, you make me want to die.
Sunday, November 7th, 2004
Subject: owned.
Time: 9:40 am.
[insert image of lacoste dunk type sneakers called turbo]
they are a smidgen too big. but my feet are happy. my wallet on the other hand...
Saturday, November 6th, 2004
Subject: a list. edited. and updated.
Time: 10:19 am.
hi. built by wendy.
old school (cheaper) ipod.
cheap ass digital camera.
pedicure.
paul brown nike air trainer ones, size seven.
target gift certificate.
adopted boxer.
hi black and gum nike air force ones, size six and a half or seven.
built by wendy vintage demin jeans, wrangler edition, size twenty seven or twenty eight.
underwear, size five, small, or extra small.
socks, with strips. three, not two.
mittens with the finger flap.
arm length mittens.
unicorn earrings.
bird wall decals.
unicorn bag.
cheap ass all-in-one printer.
nike lucky sevens. size seven.
simply basic lotion from wal-mart.
peanut butter and company peanut butter.
yankee candle. storm watch.
monday.
Wednesday, November 3rd, 2004
Subject: Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher...
Time: 7:27 pm.
ALL you are doing and saying is to America dangled mirages,
You have not learn’d of Nature—of the politics of Nature, you have not learn’d the great amplitude, rectitude, impartiality;
You have not seen that only such as they are for These States,
And that what is less than they, must sooner or later lift off from These States.
__________________________________________
WHY reclining, interrogating? Why myself and all drowsing?
What deepening twilight! scum floating atop of the waters!
Who are they, as bats and night-dogs, askant in the Capitol?
What a filthy Presidentiad! (O south, your torrid suns! O north, your arctic freezings!)
Are those really Congressmen? are those the great Judges? is that the President?
Then I will sleep awhile yet—for I see that These States sleep, for reasons;
(With gathering murk—with muttering thunder and lambent shoots, we all duly awake,
South, north, east, west, inland and seaboard, we will surely awake.)
Time: 8:45 pm.
horizontal rain won.
Saturday, March 26th, 2005
Subject: e-mail.
Time: 5:36 pm.
yo ms d whats good its ralphy i was just wondering if u have n e work i can do to atleast pass your class with a 65 if you do holla at me ight
Friday, March 4th, 2005
Time: 7:40 pm.
Cold was the night, hard was the ground
They found her in a small grove of trees
Lonesome was the place where Georgia was found
She's too young to be out
On the street.
Why wasn't God watching?
Why wasn't God listening?
Why wasn't God there for
Georgia Lee?
Ida said she couldn't keep Georgia
From dropping out of school
I was doing the best that I could
But she kept runnin away from this world
These children are so hard to raise good
Why wasn't God watching?
Why wasn't God listening?
Why wasn't God there for
Georgia Lee?
Close your eyes and count to ten
I will got and hid but then
Be sure to find me. I want you to find me
And we'll play all over
We will play all over again
There's a toad in the witch grass
There's a crow in the corn
Wild flowers on a cross by the road
And somewhere a baby is crying
For her mom
As the hills turn from green back
To gold
Why wasn't God watching?
Why wasn't God listening?
Why wasn't God there for
Georgia Lee?
Saturday, February 26th, 2005
Time: 10:44 am.
vacation is almost over. school is almost over. less than four months.
please recommend any cheap vacationing spots for two, for the summer months.
Wednesday, February 16th, 2005
Time: 7:32 pm.
NEW YORK—Teach For America, a national program that recruits recent college graduates to teach in low-income rural and urban communities, has devoured another ethnic-studies major, 24-year-old Andy Cuellen reported Tuesday.
"Look, the world is a miserable place," said Cuellen, a Dartmouth graduate who quit the TFA program Monday morning. "All people—even children—are just nasty animals trying to secure their share of the food supply. I don't care how poor or how rich you are, that's just a fact. I'm sorry, but I have better things to do than zoo-keep for peanuts."
Just one of the 12,000 young people TFA has burned through since 1990, Cuellen was given five weeks of training the summer before he took over a classroom at P.S. 83 in the South Bronx last September.
"I walked into that school actually thinking I could make a difference," said Cuellen, who taught an overflowing class of disadvantaged 8-year-olds. "It was trial by fire. But after five months spent in a stuffy, dark room where the chalkboard fell off the wall every two days, corralling screaming kids into broken desks, I'm burnt to a crisp."
Cuellen said his TFA experience "taught him a lot about hopelessness."
"The cities are fucked. The suburbs are fucked. The whole country is fucked," Cuellen said. "And there's not a goddamned thing you or anyone can do about it. Anyone who says otherwise is selling something. Or trying to get you to teach kids math."
According to Dartmouth literature, as a member of the ethnic-studies department, Cuellen learned "to empower students of color to move beyond being objects of study toward being subjects of their own social realities, with voices of their own."
Teach For America executive director Theo Anderson called ethnic-studies departments "a prime source of fodder."
"Oh, I'd say we burn through a hundred or so ethnic-studies majors each year," said Anderson, pointing to a series of charts showing the college-major breakdown of TFA corps members. "They tend to last a little longer than women's studies majors and art-therapy students, but Cuellen got mashed to a pulp pretty quickly. It usually takes ethnic-studies majors another year to realize that they're wasting their precious youth on a Sisyphean endeavor."
Continued Anderson: "Of course, we don't worry about it too much. Every year, there's a fresh crop to throw in the grinder. As we speak, scores of apple-cheeked students are hearing about TFA for the first time."
According to Anderson, a small portion of these students will lose interest after hearing horror stories from program alumni.
"But the majority of them will march on like cattle to the slaughter, thinking that pure determination and hope can change young lives," Anderson said. "I can hear their footsteps now, marching toward our offices like lemmings to a cliff. And believe me, we're ready for 'em."
Cuellen said he applied to TFA in search of a "character-building experience."
"I knew that teaching in a severely under-funded inner-city school would be challenging, but I wanted to get out into the real world," Cuellen said. "Well, breaking up fistfights between 8-year-olds all day long, I got a real ugly view of reality. Do you want to know reality? Look at a dog lying dead in the gutter. That's reality."
Although Cuellen quit the program early, his mother said he was with TFA long enough for it "to crack open his bones and suck out the marrow inside."
"Andy is a ghost," Beverly Cuellen said. "Those [TFA] people beat the idealism out of him, then they stomped on him while he lay there gasping for air."
TFA regional coordinator Sandra Richman said it is common to blame the TFA employees for the organization's high plow-through rate.
"Should I have said something to wake those kids up sooner?" Richman said, crushing out her seventh cigarette. "Probably. But listen, no one can tell you that you can't make a difference. It's something you have to figure out for yourself."
"You can only do so much," Richman added. "After a couple years of trying to teach our applicants about how difficult and depressing their lives will inevitably be—no matter what they choose to do for money—I just got burnt out. In the end, you've gotta resign yourself to failure and move on with your life."
Saturday, February 12th, 2005
Subject: is wangster a word?
Time: 10:24 pm.
wow. so i was hired and trained to teach this ninth grade ramp-up to literacy class, which is prescribed to almost every junior high school and high school in new york city. if you have not a clue as to what it is, it is a course designed to "ramp-up" students to higher reading levels. if little jorge joins the ninth grade community with a fourth-grade reading level, my job is to get him to a higher reading level (not necessarily that of a ninth grade reading level). our mantra is the seven habits of the proficient reader: activating schema (text-to-self, text-to-text, text-to-word); creating images/visualizing; asking questions; making inferences; making predictions; monitoring for meaning (using fix-up strategies); and summarizing, synthesizing, and retelling.
with this mantra, i am to read-aloud, yes, read-aloud to my youngsters as they follow along with their own copy of whatever text i push on them.
so.
i've ditched the program for a bit to teach my little flowers poetry and the fundaments of writing a research paper.
i've created a "poem a day" project for my little roses, and boy o'fucking boy do i have some neat poems to share with you in the days to come! here is a little sample:
(background info: theme, individuality (me, myself and i). purpose, to inform. audience, young adults. mood, serious. form, eight lines with some sort of rhyming pattern)
i like math class
alot of girls got fat ass
i am the master
anything he write i do it faster
i sometime get in trouble
but i always have a double.
Monday, January 31st, 2005
Subject: this just in.
Time: 10:04 pm.
i hate english teachers.
Saturday, January 22nd, 2005
Subject: HA!
Time: 10:41 am.
[insert picture of young ashley judd]
[insert picture of young erica dow's acting i.d. card]
Friday, January 21st, 2005
Subject: i just want to say.
Time: 6:43 pm.
i'm one lucky gal.
Saturday, January 8th, 2005
Time: 6:23 pm.
i felt better! i went back to teaching. but now, i feel shitty again. i cannot shake the heats. i'll blame the kids.
adam and i forfeited a trip to peekskill because of the weather. so today was full of naps and mopping. as he tinkers around on his computer, burning away copies of cds, i am getting my sunday work load in now.
guh ( i'm pretty backed up in grading.
save me.
Wednesday, January 5th, 2005
Subject: delirious.
Time: 2:33 pm.
is it the flu that makes me feel this way? or all the medicine.
Wednesday, November 17th, 2004
Subject: Patience, and lack thereof.
Time: 7:00 pm.
That is my summation. I feel like my patience is waning because it is perpetually tested every week, day, hour, minute, and second. Where once I found myself pliable I now find myself stiff, somewhat hardened to the environment around me. Sometimes I can hear my own bones creak and my hair shooting at the root freezing to white.
Today I asked a fellow art academy teacher this:
“Do they get better?”
He replied as follows:
“No…”
Followed by the longest, most dramatic caesura I have ever encountered, and then:
“…but you will.”
Gah! That’s not what I wanted to hear. I wanted to hear that my students would eventually yield, that they would lie down and play dead at the demands of their teacher. What the hell is this anarchy?
Is anarchy so pure that those that possess the quality therein don’t even understand the meaning and concept and history? What the hell do they need to rebel against? All I’ve shown them has been tough-love, tolerance, and guidance. And what do they do? They make me feel sad, too often, at the end of the day.
Will it, if not them or I, get better?
_________________________________
I will refer, again, to the time when a colleague told me, flatly, to “Just stop caring.” And later in the day hearing a similar resonance of fucking idiocy from another peer: “Teachers aren’t going to change the world.”
Fuck you. Fuck the both of you. Fuck your dim-witted lack of ideals. Why the fuck are you teaching? Leave the miserable to wrestle with the ethic and morale of teaching and get a fucking telemarketing job if you don’t care. Push papers across desks if you don’t want to perpetuate change in the world of [academic] complacency.
_____________
If this is the disillusionment phase, I have hit it. And hit it hard. I think some good teas and a nice Thanksgiving break will pull me out of this sluggish lull of the winter blues and the poisonous waters of my buckled patience.
Monday, November 15th, 2004
Time: 5:33 pm.
in my twenty five years i have never experienced a day like sunday. i mean it when i say it was the best birthday that i've ever had. sugar-free chocolate cheesecake with sugar free whipped cream. beer and wings at croxley ales. photobooth pictures at seven b. ballooned kitchen floor. shiny birthday banner. they say it's your birthday. on repeat. unicorn plates, napkins, cups, and mostly importantly, hats. pin the tail on the donkey. kerplunk.
sound special? it was. and so is he.
Sunday, November 14th, 2004
Subject: merry christmas!
Time: 9:12 am.
[insert broken image of something i don't remember]
Saturday, November 13th, 2004
Subject: also. this is fucking amazing. hello wallpaper.
Time: 12:27 pm.
[insert awesome perry bible comic indicating unicorn power]
Time: 11:33 am.
yesterday was the sort of day that made me question just about everything in my life.
i stepped away from it all with a cigarette in the rain.
why does this kid* make me angry? how does a child make me angry?
______________
this always makes me feel better:
you're the pincard, you're
the lifeguard, you're the
information guy, but things
look much bigger on the
knees, on your knees.
miss the signal, miss the
signpost, lose the access to
it all. and all of a sudden
you are one with the freaks.
Tuesday, November 9th, 2004
Time: 6:29 am.
chan marshall, you make me want to die.
Sunday, November 7th, 2004
Subject: owned.
Time: 9:40 am.
[insert image of lacoste dunk type sneakers called turbo]
they are a smidgen too big. but my feet are happy. my wallet on the other hand...
Saturday, November 6th, 2004
Subject: a list. edited. and updated.
Time: 10:19 am.
hi. built by wendy.
old school (cheaper) ipod.
cheap ass digital camera.
pedicure.
paul brown nike air trainer ones, size seven.
target gift certificate.
adopted boxer.
hi black and gum nike air force ones, size six and a half or seven.
built by wendy vintage demin jeans, wrangler edition, size twenty seven or twenty eight.
underwear, size five, small, or extra small.
socks, with strips. three, not two.
mittens with the finger flap.
arm length mittens.
unicorn earrings.
bird wall decals.
unicorn bag.
cheap ass all-in-one printer.
nike lucky sevens. size seven.
simply basic lotion from wal-mart.
peanut butter and company peanut butter.
yankee candle. storm watch.
monday.
Wednesday, November 3rd, 2004
Subject: Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher...
Time: 7:27 pm.
ALL you are doing and saying is to America dangled mirages,
You have not learn’d of Nature—of the politics of Nature, you have not learn’d the great amplitude, rectitude, impartiality;
You have not seen that only such as they are for These States,
And that what is less than they, must sooner or later lift off from These States.
__________________________________________
WHY reclining, interrogating? Why myself and all drowsing?
What deepening twilight! scum floating atop of the waters!
Who are they, as bats and night-dogs, askant in the Capitol?
What a filthy Presidentiad! (O south, your torrid suns! O north, your arctic freezings!)
Are those really Congressmen? are those the great Judges? is that the President?
Then I will sleep awhile yet—for I see that These States sleep, for reasons;
(With gathering murk—with muttering thunder and lambent shoots, we all duly awake,
South, north, east, west, inland and seaboard, we will surely awake.)
six.
Sunday, February 15th, 2004
Subject: saturday.
Time: 11:09 pm.
Mood: scattered..
Music: cunninglynguists.
friday was fun. i can't say that fun has been apart of my life as of late, so it was a welcome change.
what was not fun was losing my phone. i remember sticking it in my bag before i left the apartment. when i returned around the time of three in the morning, i reached in my bag with the intention of texting a well wishing message, and the phone just wasn't there.
i told richie that i practiced good cellular phone manners on my outing. and maybe if i hadn't i would have known at some point (before three)that it was missing. so i trekked over to mona's and joey's and they don't have the fucker.
all day i've been trying to hone in my telepathic powers.
if you heard, in your mind, a knock-knock, it was me. let me in.
i do things sometimes until ad nauseum. like cleaning. or plucking out my white hairs. itching. tossing about in my bed. i do it until my jaw is so tense i get a headache and i want to puke all over my kicks. when did this all begin. will it ever end. i mean, it's hard to think of rainbows and candy and bunnies all the time.
Friday, February 13th, 2004
Subject: my hardest year.
Time: 3:42 pm.
fall filled with warafin. late arrivals to my acient greek seminar. bruised arms and tired eyes. a full load. a mainstage. a job. shit-fucks for roommates. january term filled with black text to white blank paper not wanting to be filled because of fear. a spring to finish that play. direct that play. set, light, sound design for another play. full course load. another mainstage. and filling last minute requirements.
i still got a 3.83 for that year.
when i called the mathematician in the registrar office today to sort out my individual year grade point averages, i started to cry a little. i re-lived that shit-year in a nanosecond separted by cellular phone static, three hunderd miles, and two years.
but somehow i got by, and for that i'm proud (which also made me cry a little).
so both are done. i sent the second in today. i will know the verdicts in two weeks. wish me luck.
also, my notebook is rad.
Wednesday, February 11th, 2004
Subject: one is done and sent.
Time: 11:27 pm.
the other, soon to follow.
seriously, who did the double-checking mathematics on my transcripts?
my train leaves at eleven tomorrow morning. i have a lot to do when i get back.
things i've learned:
that i am afraid of coy-dogs.
that denting out a jar of peanut-butter in two days is nothing compared to the dents i put into some fake sugar ben and jerry's pints in one hour.
that i really am a terrible driver.
that i have a whole lot to give, but i need to give a little to myself once and a while.
that mustard is not a good substitute for salad dressing.
that my mother wants to be a grandmother, badly.
that my brother is actually funny.
that i really do love new york city.
that i use the word that, a lot.
that i'd drop anything in a nanosecond for my mother.
Tuesday, February 10th, 2004
Subject: CATALINA MADELINA.
Time: 8:16 pm.
There was a girl, she had a funny name.
She got it from her pappy just the same, same, same.
Catalina, Madalina, Lubinsteiner, Walenhimer, Hogan, Logan, Posgan, was her name.
She had twenty hairs on the top of her head.
Ten were alive and ten were dead.
She had two teeth in the front of her mouth.
One pointed north and the other pointed south.
She had two eyes in the front of her head.
One was yellow and the other was red.
Her ears stuck out like the sails of a boat.
Her adams apple wandered up and down her throat.
She loved to polish her finger nails.
She bought her polish in ten gallon pails.
The language she spoke was an awful joke.
Her head was made out of solid oak.
Catalina, Madalina, Lubinsteiner, Walenhimer, Hogan, Logan, Posgan, was her name.
Time: 11:17 am.
some of you are ridiculous.
Monday, February 9th, 2004
Subject: ©
Time: 9:54 am.
I HATE THE WORD
Consequence:
jutting black on
yellow-stained white
paper, like pepper
and salt, like you and
me.
(con) Sequ[i]n (ce):
reminds me of
the prom that I
always hated, you
in a black suit
acrid with your sweat,
your hand
on the ass of my
pseudo virginal jaundice
dress.
I should have slit
your throat then,
but my nails were so plastic
pretty, and I was
nice.
Sunday, February 8th, 2004
Time: 11:02 pm.
engine driver's headed north to pleasant stream.
these wheels keep turning but they're running out of steam.
Saturday, February 7th, 2004
Subject: i often feel like the person in the crooked finger's song broken man.
Time: 8:04 pm.
well, i am feeling better, and i'm fighting against this no motivation feeling. i'm blaming the winter, but it's all about the blahs. we all go through this.
so joe (finally) dropped off my poetry portfolio. i lured him with a beer or coffee e-mail. though we never met up. nor do i want to. but since he's been working on the house next to ours on kingsboro i figured he'd be (more of) a real asshole if he decided to conveniently forget to drop it off. but to my surprise he came through. me mum was shocked that jen didn't burn it, or urinate on it, or rip it to shreds. she's that kind of chick. for the longest time during my friendship with joe i was convinced that one day i'd magically disappear and would be found one day, decades later, buried in her folk's front yard. yes, she is that kind of girl.
today i also found out that the amsterdam dunkin donuts charges more for the great one than the one on houston street in new york city. what the fuck. i also found out that amsterdam is in possession of a store solely dedicated to bows and arrows, and appropriately the store is named bows and arrow. also, what the fuck.
i wrote this:
In a dream I was lusting after chocolate covered peanut-butter wafers
enriched flour
riboflavin
and partially hydrogenated soybean oil
In a not-dream my mother’s warm body was next to mine
and this (which is a part of the same poem):
like when I stare at a flashlight for too long
or when I glance at that torrent orb light
in the compressed archaic racquetball court at the gym
You were like a luminous protostar
evolving and
tracking
through my Hertzsprung-Russell gray matter
the nebulae of my memory
as if you were on your way to becoming a main sequence star
_______________
i've been thinking about you lately. no, not you. you.
Thursday, February 5th, 2004
Time: 10:20 pm.
Mood: accomplished.
a list:
house gut, check.
college chest gut, check.
portfolio plea, check.
arrear e-mail, check.
tax crap, check.
new laptop on back order, check.
change of life plan, check.
things are moving a long swimmingly. but it would be nice if you could (silently, if you'd prefer) wish me luck. shakiness is still in the future, i predict.
Wednesday, February 4th, 2004
Subject: Compaq Presario Notebook:
Time: 10:20 am.
Model 2100US Notebook
-Microprocessor Intel® Celeron® Processor - 1.6 GHz
-Hard Drive 30GB enhanced-IDE
-Memory 256 MB DDR SDRAM; Memory Max 1024 MB
-Memory Speed 266 MHz
-Total DIMM Sockets 2; available DIMM Sockets 1
-Second-Level Cache (L2) 128 KB (L2)
-Multimedia Drive DVD+CD-RW Combo; CD,DVD Rewritable Drive CD-read 24x; CD-write 8x; CD-rewrite 8x; DVD-read 8x
-Diskette Drive: NO
-Fax/Data Modem Integrated v.90/v.92 56 KB modem (RJ-11 connector)
-Network Integrated 10/100BASE-T Ethernet LAN (RJ-45 connector)
-Keyboard 87-/88-key, full-size with embedded numeric keypad
-Pointing Device Touch Pad with On/Off button and dedicated vertical Scroll Up/Down pad; Additional mouse included in-box.
-Sound 16-bit Sound Blaster Pro-compatible audio
-Speakers Internal stereo speakers
-Total Expansion Slots:1 Type II or III PC card slot; CardBus-enabled
-Total External Ports: 2 Universal Serial Bus (USB); 1 Parallel (25-pin); 1 Serial; 1 PS/2 keyboard/mouse; 1 headphone-out; 1 microphone-in; 1 VGA (15-pin); 1 TV-Out (S-video); 1 RJ-11 (modem); 1 RJ -45 (LAN); 1 DC-in (AC adapter)
-Available External Ports: 2 Universal Serial Bus (USB); 1 Parallel (25-pin); 1 Serial; 1 PS/2 keyboard/mouse; 1 headphone-out; 1 microphone-in; 1 VGA (15-pin); 1 TV-Out (S-video); 1 RJ-11 (modem); 1 RJ -45 (LAN); 1 DC-in (AC adapter)
Video Graphics (AGP)
-ATI MOBILITYTM RADEONTM AGP 4X and 3D architecture
-Graphics Memory
-32 MB DDR SDRAM (shared)
-12.96" (L) x 10.72" (W) x 1.57" (H)
-75W AC adapter; 8-Cell Lithium-Ion
-Microsoft® Windows XP Home Edition
-Microsoft® Outlook Express 6.0
-Microsoft® Internet Explorer 6.0
-Microsoft® Fax Services
-Microsoft® Firewall
-SymantecTM Norton AntivirusTM 2002 90 days live update (on CD); Getting Started Documentation Suite.
-Intervideo WinDVD (DVD player)
-Roxio Easy CD Creator
-Microsoft® Works 6.0
-Quicken® Financial Center by Intuit (U.S. only)
-Microsoft® Money 2003
-Microsoft® Encarta Online Deluxe Encyclopedia - 1 year subscription
-Adobe Acrobat Reader 5.0
-AOL® 7.0
-CompuServe® 6.0
-Netscape 6.0
OH GOD, IT SOUNDS GREAT. I MIGHT GET A HOT LAP. BUT SHIT, DO YOU AGREE YOU NERDLY NERD NERDS? PLEASE HELP.
ALSO, FORGET ABOUT AN APPLE. I DON'T WANT TO SPEND THAT MUCH.
Monday, February 2nd, 2004
Time: 8:19 pm.
there is the smell of cold winter air cut by burning brush, and the dizzying sight of a clear starry sky that makes my heart melt.
Subject: five hours at my old place on kingsboro.
Time: 4:33 pm.
Mood: sleepy.
Music: in my head: the cult. she sells sanctuary.
boy, my brother is a slob. and he listens to nu-metal. but i love him.
so i'm here partly to gain some sort of order in my life. and i'm heading in the right direction. hanging out at my old house is bitter-sweet. i get caught up in memory while sorting and cleaning and disposing. what would it be like to live here again? with trepidation, i think about how comfortable i would be here, teaching (after certification, in which i would have to enroll into school for) english and or drama at the high school. living in cheap-ass apartment with my forty pound female brindle boxer with natural ears and a docked tail. so close to my mother. christ she's a great woman. i just hate that part of me that is challenging my vehement opinion on settling.
but, i love new york. and my whims.
also on the table:
i've never traveled in a limousine.
and.
two cops on the milk box missing.
Sunday, February 1st, 2004
Subject: why did i leave?
Time: 7:23 pm.
erica: mom, what are you doing for valentine's day...it's on a friday you know?
mum: no, it's saturday and sunday.
erica: i thought the fourteenth was just one day.
Saturday, January 31st, 2004
Subject: this little funk.
Time: 8:10 pm.
is not giving one bit. so i've succumbed to reading with the voracity of a medievalist college freak waiting for his or her five ante meridiem alarm clock to sound. the call that beckons him or her to the barren field in front of the library, his or her wooden sword, and his or her flock of freak-ass friends waiting, rallying, for the morning joust.
you remember these guys right? you were one of these guys right?
so it's me and the livejournal, e-mail, and friendster. i'm cutting my ties with the superfluous nature of on-line circles. i'll keep nerve to amuse myself on those bleak and blah monday mornings. friendster, because i secretly want ms. lewis, my junior high and high school latin teacher of six years, to friendster me. and cher. i'm waiting for cher to friendster me. and i need this livejournal like a hole in the head, but i've become somewhat attached to it, in that it has been the only medium i have returned to, in regards to any documentation of my life and feeling, without reluctance. and i'm a secret lurker. let me be redundant.
Wednesday, January 28th, 2004
Subject: my belly.
Time: 11:20 am.
is expanding. thank you beer.
i need to get a computer so i can purge all my dirty little thoughts into microsoft word.
Monday, January 26th, 2004
Subject: and you know what else?
Time: 4:26 pm.
today would have been my father's birthday.
i feel old.
Subject: the short list of things i need or want and need to change. for my own reference.
Time: 3:51 pm.
rape. a love story. jco.
a facial.
a colon cleansing.
a tattoo on my left wrist.
the essential bruce springsteen.
guarapero: lost blues two. will oldham.
song cyclops, volume one. doleful lions.
time (the revelator). gillian welch.
wrecking ball. emmylou harris (i think this is the one).
bring on the snakes. crooked fingers.
things we lost in the fire. low.
the collector of hearts: new tales of the grotesque. jco.
haunted. tales of the grotesque. jco.
live in 1992. ac/dc.
a computer.
friends.
lyle lovett. my baby don't tolerate.
a female boxer around forty pounds with natural ears and a docked tail.
Friday, January 23rd, 2004
Subject: a wiser man than i once noted...
Time: 9:50 am.
there's nothing new about us.
sometimes i think about friends had and lost...it's lame...i just sit here and think about why i was friends with somebody, if i was really friends with somebody, why i'm not still friends with somebody, then it dawned on me.
relationships are about learning. taking and giving. we get ourselves into relationships, be they romantic, platonic, et cetera, to learn, to gain knowledge, to realize ourselves, our goals and our lives better. and once that resource is exhausted in somebody we move on and find the next person or set of people to draw from. it sounds shitty and shallow, but it's the truth. i've gone through countless friends over the years, but only a few have really stuck, and those are the ones i'm still learning from, be it about myself, or them, or some material and tangible thing like biology, or physics...these are the ones that last. it doesn't mean the other ones weren't important, because if they weren't important or dear, we wouldn't even think about them.
it just seems like all we can do is accept the fact that we've learned from somebody, we've taken what we can from them...and hopefully, we've in turn given back everything we could.
when the time is right, or when we're needed, or when we need them...they'll come around again.
i guess when it's all said and done we leave when there's nothing new.
Thursday, January 22nd, 2004
Subject: thanks!
Time: 11:22 am.
i just wanted to say that i had a really nice time with mike and lou yesterday. eating w1ngz. and making fun of all you assholes.
Wednesday, January 21st, 2004
Subject: i tend not to make elaborate livejournal posts.
Time: 10:05 am.
and tend only to post when i'm close to, or brimful of blood (as some of you may know i am sans blood, dead, really, i mean, why am i so cold all the time). i guess i don't want you fuckwits (i use this term in an endearing way, dirtbags) to really know what's going on. i'd rather be seen as this whirling eclipse of peripheral emotion and being. and save the real emotion and being, and babble driven by this emotion and being for interaction beyond the textual realm. the other reason exists as a mere nagging upon my compulsive tendencies, and lack of confidence in anything i write. i'll type this out maybe three times. edit it four. and erase it eventually if i find too many typographical errors. i do this with most everything i write. as i'm sure a few of you might do as well. except for me, the process becomes agonizing. i wish the process didn't exist. it's a stutter-step. something that i even suffer through when i'm surfing through non-textual mediums. which is my catch twenty-two. i have all these things i want to say, and feel so unconfident in saying it all.
i refer to my behavior as broken.
what i need is some really strong glue. and a swift kick in bubble.
Subject: saturday.
Time: 11:09 pm.
Mood: scattered..
Music: cunninglynguists.
friday was fun. i can't say that fun has been apart of my life as of late, so it was a welcome change.
what was not fun was losing my phone. i remember sticking it in my bag before i left the apartment. when i returned around the time of three in the morning, i reached in my bag with the intention of texting a well wishing message, and the phone just wasn't there.
i told richie that i practiced good cellular phone manners on my outing. and maybe if i hadn't i would have known at some point (before three)that it was missing. so i trekked over to mona's and joey's and they don't have the fucker.
all day i've been trying to hone in my telepathic powers.
if you heard, in your mind, a knock-knock, it was me. let me in.
i do things sometimes until ad nauseum. like cleaning. or plucking out my white hairs. itching. tossing about in my bed. i do it until my jaw is so tense i get a headache and i want to puke all over my kicks. when did this all begin. will it ever end. i mean, it's hard to think of rainbows and candy and bunnies all the time.
Friday, February 13th, 2004
Subject: my hardest year.
Time: 3:42 pm.
fall filled with warafin. late arrivals to my acient greek seminar. bruised arms and tired eyes. a full load. a mainstage. a job. shit-fucks for roommates. january term filled with black text to white blank paper not wanting to be filled because of fear. a spring to finish that play. direct that play. set, light, sound design for another play. full course load. another mainstage. and filling last minute requirements.
i still got a 3.83 for that year.
when i called the mathematician in the registrar office today to sort out my individual year grade point averages, i started to cry a little. i re-lived that shit-year in a nanosecond separted by cellular phone static, three hunderd miles, and two years.
but somehow i got by, and for that i'm proud (which also made me cry a little).
so both are done. i sent the second in today. i will know the verdicts in two weeks. wish me luck.
also, my notebook is rad.
Wednesday, February 11th, 2004
Subject: one is done and sent.
Time: 11:27 pm.
the other, soon to follow.
seriously, who did the double-checking mathematics on my transcripts?
my train leaves at eleven tomorrow morning. i have a lot to do when i get back.
things i've learned:
that i am afraid of coy-dogs.
that denting out a jar of peanut-butter in two days is nothing compared to the dents i put into some fake sugar ben and jerry's pints in one hour.
that i really am a terrible driver.
that i have a whole lot to give, but i need to give a little to myself once and a while.
that mustard is not a good substitute for salad dressing.
that my mother wants to be a grandmother, badly.
that my brother is actually funny.
that i really do love new york city.
that i use the word that, a lot.
that i'd drop anything in a nanosecond for my mother.
Tuesday, February 10th, 2004
Subject: CATALINA MADELINA.
Time: 8:16 pm.
There was a girl, she had a funny name.
She got it from her pappy just the same, same, same.
Catalina, Madalina, Lubinsteiner, Walenhimer, Hogan, Logan, Posgan, was her name.
She had twenty hairs on the top of her head.
Ten were alive and ten were dead.
She had two teeth in the front of her mouth.
One pointed north and the other pointed south.
She had two eyes in the front of her head.
One was yellow and the other was red.
Her ears stuck out like the sails of a boat.
Her adams apple wandered up and down her throat.
She loved to polish her finger nails.
She bought her polish in ten gallon pails.
The language she spoke was an awful joke.
Her head was made out of solid oak.
Catalina, Madalina, Lubinsteiner, Walenhimer, Hogan, Logan, Posgan, was her name.
Time: 11:17 am.
some of you are ridiculous.
Monday, February 9th, 2004
Subject: ©
Time: 9:54 am.
I HATE THE WORD
Consequence:
jutting black on
yellow-stained white
paper, like pepper
and salt, like you and
me.
(con) Sequ[i]n (ce):
reminds me of
the prom that I
always hated, you
in a black suit
acrid with your sweat,
your hand
on the ass of my
pseudo virginal jaundice
dress.
I should have slit
your throat then,
but my nails were so plastic
pretty, and I was
nice.
Sunday, February 8th, 2004
Time: 11:02 pm.
engine driver's headed north to pleasant stream.
these wheels keep turning but they're running out of steam.
Saturday, February 7th, 2004
Subject: i often feel like the person in the crooked finger's song broken man.
Time: 8:04 pm.
well, i am feeling better, and i'm fighting against this no motivation feeling. i'm blaming the winter, but it's all about the blahs. we all go through this.
so joe (finally) dropped off my poetry portfolio. i lured him with a beer or coffee e-mail. though we never met up. nor do i want to. but since he's been working on the house next to ours on kingsboro i figured he'd be (more of) a real asshole if he decided to conveniently forget to drop it off. but to my surprise he came through. me mum was shocked that jen didn't burn it, or urinate on it, or rip it to shreds. she's that kind of chick. for the longest time during my friendship with joe i was convinced that one day i'd magically disappear and would be found one day, decades later, buried in her folk's front yard. yes, she is that kind of girl.
today i also found out that the amsterdam dunkin donuts charges more for the great one than the one on houston street in new york city. what the fuck. i also found out that amsterdam is in possession of a store solely dedicated to bows and arrows, and appropriately the store is named bows and arrow. also, what the fuck.
i wrote this:
In a dream I was lusting after chocolate covered peanut-butter wafers
enriched flour
riboflavin
and partially hydrogenated soybean oil
In a not-dream my mother’s warm body was next to mine
and this (which is a part of the same poem):
like when I stare at a flashlight for too long
or when I glance at that torrent orb light
in the compressed archaic racquetball court at the gym
You were like a luminous protostar
evolving and
tracking
through my Hertzsprung-Russell gray matter
the nebulae of my memory
as if you were on your way to becoming a main sequence star
_______________
i've been thinking about you lately. no, not you. you.
Thursday, February 5th, 2004
Time: 10:20 pm.
Mood: accomplished.
a list:
house gut, check.
college chest gut, check.
portfolio plea, check.
arrear e-mail, check.
tax crap, check.
new laptop on back order, check.
change of life plan, check.
things are moving a long swimmingly. but it would be nice if you could (silently, if you'd prefer) wish me luck. shakiness is still in the future, i predict.
Wednesday, February 4th, 2004
Subject: Compaq Presario Notebook:
Time: 10:20 am.
Model 2100US Notebook
-Microprocessor Intel® Celeron® Processor - 1.6 GHz
-Hard Drive 30GB enhanced-IDE
-Memory 256 MB DDR SDRAM; Memory Max 1024 MB
-Memory Speed 266 MHz
-Total DIMM Sockets 2; available DIMM Sockets 1
-Second-Level Cache (L2) 128 KB (L2)
-Multimedia Drive DVD+CD-RW Combo; CD,DVD Rewritable Drive CD-read 24x; CD-write 8x; CD-rewrite 8x; DVD-read 8x
-Diskette Drive: NO
-Fax/Data Modem Integrated v.90/v.92 56 KB modem (RJ-11 connector)
-Network Integrated 10/100BASE-T Ethernet LAN (RJ-45 connector)
-Keyboard 87-/88-key, full-size with embedded numeric keypad
-Pointing Device Touch Pad with On/Off button and dedicated vertical Scroll Up/Down pad; Additional mouse included in-box.
-Sound 16-bit Sound Blaster Pro-compatible audio
-Speakers Internal stereo speakers
-Total Expansion Slots:1 Type II or III PC card slot; CardBus-enabled
-Total External Ports: 2 Universal Serial Bus (USB); 1 Parallel (25-pin); 1 Serial; 1 PS/2 keyboard/mouse; 1 headphone-out; 1 microphone-in; 1 VGA (15-pin); 1 TV-Out (S-video); 1 RJ-11 (modem); 1 RJ -45 (LAN); 1 DC-in (AC adapter)
-Available External Ports: 2 Universal Serial Bus (USB); 1 Parallel (25-pin); 1 Serial; 1 PS/2 keyboard/mouse; 1 headphone-out; 1 microphone-in; 1 VGA (15-pin); 1 TV-Out (S-video); 1 RJ-11 (modem); 1 RJ -45 (LAN); 1 DC-in (AC adapter)
Video Graphics (AGP)
-ATI MOBILITYTM RADEONTM AGP 4X and 3D architecture
-Graphics Memory
-32 MB DDR SDRAM (shared)
-12.96" (L) x 10.72" (W) x 1.57" (H)
-75W AC adapter; 8-Cell Lithium-Ion
-Microsoft® Windows XP Home Edition
-Microsoft® Outlook Express 6.0
-Microsoft® Internet Explorer 6.0
-Microsoft® Fax Services
-Microsoft® Firewall
-SymantecTM Norton AntivirusTM 2002 90 days live update (on CD); Getting Started Documentation Suite.
-Intervideo WinDVD (DVD player)
-Roxio Easy CD Creator
-Microsoft® Works 6.0
-Quicken® Financial Center by Intuit (U.S. only)
-Microsoft® Money 2003
-Microsoft® Encarta Online Deluxe Encyclopedia - 1 year subscription
-Adobe Acrobat Reader 5.0
-AOL® 7.0
-CompuServe® 6.0
-Netscape 6.0
OH GOD, IT SOUNDS GREAT. I MIGHT GET A HOT LAP. BUT SHIT, DO YOU AGREE YOU NERDLY NERD NERDS? PLEASE HELP.
ALSO, FORGET ABOUT AN APPLE. I DON'T WANT TO SPEND THAT MUCH.
Monday, February 2nd, 2004
Time: 8:19 pm.
there is the smell of cold winter air cut by burning brush, and the dizzying sight of a clear starry sky that makes my heart melt.
Subject: five hours at my old place on kingsboro.
Time: 4:33 pm.
Mood: sleepy.
Music: in my head: the cult. she sells sanctuary.
boy, my brother is a slob. and he listens to nu-metal. but i love him.
so i'm here partly to gain some sort of order in my life. and i'm heading in the right direction. hanging out at my old house is bitter-sweet. i get caught up in memory while sorting and cleaning and disposing. what would it be like to live here again? with trepidation, i think about how comfortable i would be here, teaching (after certification, in which i would have to enroll into school for) english and or drama at the high school. living in cheap-ass apartment with my forty pound female brindle boxer with natural ears and a docked tail. so close to my mother. christ she's a great woman. i just hate that part of me that is challenging my vehement opinion on settling.
but, i love new york. and my whims.
also on the table:
i've never traveled in a limousine.
and.
two cops on the milk box missing.
Sunday, February 1st, 2004
Subject: why did i leave?
Time: 7:23 pm.
erica: mom, what are you doing for valentine's day...it's on a friday you know?
mum: no, it's saturday and sunday.
erica: i thought the fourteenth was just one day.
Saturday, January 31st, 2004
Subject: this little funk.
Time: 8:10 pm.
is not giving one bit. so i've succumbed to reading with the voracity of a medievalist college freak waiting for his or her five ante meridiem alarm clock to sound. the call that beckons him or her to the barren field in front of the library, his or her wooden sword, and his or her flock of freak-ass friends waiting, rallying, for the morning joust.
you remember these guys right? you were one of these guys right?
so it's me and the livejournal, e-mail, and friendster. i'm cutting my ties with the superfluous nature of on-line circles. i'll keep nerve to amuse myself on those bleak and blah monday mornings. friendster, because i secretly want ms. lewis, my junior high and high school latin teacher of six years, to friendster me. and cher. i'm waiting for cher to friendster me. and i need this livejournal like a hole in the head, but i've become somewhat attached to it, in that it has been the only medium i have returned to, in regards to any documentation of my life and feeling, without reluctance. and i'm a secret lurker. let me be redundant.
Wednesday, January 28th, 2004
Subject: my belly.
Time: 11:20 am.
is expanding. thank you beer.
i need to get a computer so i can purge all my dirty little thoughts into microsoft word.
Monday, January 26th, 2004
Subject: and you know what else?
Time: 4:26 pm.
today would have been my father's birthday.
i feel old.
Subject: the short list of things i need or want and need to change. for my own reference.
Time: 3:51 pm.
rape. a love story. jco.
a facial.
a colon cleansing.
a tattoo on my left wrist.
the essential bruce springsteen.
guarapero: lost blues two. will oldham.
song cyclops, volume one. doleful lions.
time (the revelator). gillian welch.
wrecking ball. emmylou harris (i think this is the one).
bring on the snakes. crooked fingers.
things we lost in the fire. low.
the collector of hearts: new tales of the grotesque. jco.
haunted. tales of the grotesque. jco.
live in 1992. ac/dc.
a computer.
friends.
lyle lovett. my baby don't tolerate.
a female boxer around forty pounds with natural ears and a docked tail.
Friday, January 23rd, 2004
Subject: a wiser man than i once noted...
Time: 9:50 am.
there's nothing new about us.
sometimes i think about friends had and lost...it's lame...i just sit here and think about why i was friends with somebody, if i was really friends with somebody, why i'm not still friends with somebody, then it dawned on me.
relationships are about learning. taking and giving. we get ourselves into relationships, be they romantic, platonic, et cetera, to learn, to gain knowledge, to realize ourselves, our goals and our lives better. and once that resource is exhausted in somebody we move on and find the next person or set of people to draw from. it sounds shitty and shallow, but it's the truth. i've gone through countless friends over the years, but only a few have really stuck, and those are the ones i'm still learning from, be it about myself, or them, or some material and tangible thing like biology, or physics...these are the ones that last. it doesn't mean the other ones weren't important, because if they weren't important or dear, we wouldn't even think about them.
it just seems like all we can do is accept the fact that we've learned from somebody, we've taken what we can from them...and hopefully, we've in turn given back everything we could.
when the time is right, or when we're needed, or when we need them...they'll come around again.
i guess when it's all said and done we leave when there's nothing new.
Thursday, January 22nd, 2004
Subject: thanks!
Time: 11:22 am.
i just wanted to say that i had a really nice time with mike and lou yesterday. eating w1ngz. and making fun of all you assholes.
Wednesday, January 21st, 2004
Subject: i tend not to make elaborate livejournal posts.
Time: 10:05 am.
and tend only to post when i'm close to, or brimful of blood (as some of you may know i am sans blood, dead, really, i mean, why am i so cold all the time). i guess i don't want you fuckwits (i use this term in an endearing way, dirtbags) to really know what's going on. i'd rather be seen as this whirling eclipse of peripheral emotion and being. and save the real emotion and being, and babble driven by this emotion and being for interaction beyond the textual realm. the other reason exists as a mere nagging upon my compulsive tendencies, and lack of confidence in anything i write. i'll type this out maybe three times. edit it four. and erase it eventually if i find too many typographical errors. i do this with most everything i write. as i'm sure a few of you might do as well. except for me, the process becomes agonizing. i wish the process didn't exist. it's a stutter-step. something that i even suffer through when i'm surfing through non-textual mediums. which is my catch twenty-two. i have all these things i want to say, and feel so unconfident in saying it all.
i refer to my behavior as broken.
what i need is some really strong glue. and a swift kick in bubble.
three.
Thursday, July 31st, 2003
Subject: i know that you lurk around once and a bit...
Time: 11:01 pm.
and i want to say thank you for being my friend. and after reading this you will sing the golden girl's theme song for the rest of the day.
Thursday, July 24th, 2003
Time: 11:06 am.
i have been going on dates.
Friday, July 11th, 2003
Subject: EVEN ON THE PHONE MY MUM...
Time: 4:02 pm.
CAN ALWAYS TELL WHEN I'M DUE FOR MY PERIOD BY THE TONE IN MY VOICE.
Wednesday, July 9th, 2003
Subject: greetings.
Time: 11:51 am.
i feel settled.
i'm job hunting, so there is this gaping hole in my work life but everything else is pretty much alright. though this settling feeling is fulfilling, i still have these romanticized yearnings to flee to the middle of nowhere. i could bartend and write. plant tomatoes and cut myself off from the rest of this busy world. but i have plenty of time to fulfill that dream. am i really sixty-four?
are you where you want to be in life? if not, i suggest you change it.
Monday, July 7th, 2003
Subject: http://pisces.bubble.com/webstars/friend/friendForm.cfm
Time: 5:09 pm.
erica dow is mysterious and enigmatic; deep, perceptive, powerful, passionate and terribly, terribly sexy! The sentence above must be true because erica is a Scorpio and Scorpios as we all know are infamous for their interest in... well now, here's a funny thing. Despite what they say, Scorpios are not actually quite as wild and wicked as they are painted. erica has, it must be said, a very hypnotic appeal but what's truly mesmerising about erica is not her pout but her perspicacity. erica has an uncanny, almost spooky to see right through you. She can make you feel naked and exposed just by casting one meaningful glance in your direction. What she is looking at though, when she peers below the surface, is not your underwear but your underlying intention! "Where are you coming from? What are you up to? Can you be trusted? Are you going to tell the truth?" These are the questions that erica subconsciously fires out as soon as she sees you. Her inner radar never fails to provide her with the right answer. She is sensitive beyond measure, and it is partly to protect her own sensitivity that she scrutinises people so thoroughly.
There is another reason why erica dow is so keen to see into your soul: she needs to know how sensitive you are. She knows from long, bitter experience that not many people can take the kind of candour that she cannot help but dispense. erica is not a person to mince her words, hold back her opinions or shy away from taboo topics. She doesn't want to cause offence, nor does she want to waste her time, so she picks her confidantes carefully. All of which brings us back to where we began. If you are sensitive enough to appreciate erica's special qualities you will consider that there is something exceptionally sexy about her and she will feel the same way about you. So perhaps erica dow is living proof that it is true what they say about Scorpios after all.
Subject: sweaty.
Time: 5:06 pm.
and feeling less than pretty. and as i walked to kinko's, hairy ratty and no make-up, someone told me i was beautiful.
Saturday, July 5th, 2003
Time: 8:17 pm.
Mood: mellow.
Music: hot ninety-seven.
writing a letter i'll never send to you.
Friday, July 4th, 2003
Subject: tired.
Time: 10:21 pm.
today i stopped breathing on the r train.
three young ladies helped me out in my state of panic.
Wednesday, July 2nd, 2003
Subject: paint fumes.
Time: 11:54 pm.
a-rocka came over and helped me paint. one more day and i'm done. holla.
Tuesday, July 1st, 2003
Subject: july.
Time: 10:42 am.
holy smokes.
i'm working on my day schedule. i went to bed and nine thirty last night, after i went to the grocery. today i got up at seven-thirty. ran two miles. harassed my health insurance company, called my mother and made breakfast.
in the next few hours i will by paint supplies for my room.
on another note. i met this kid dan on friendster. turns out his mum was my sixth grade teacher.
Sunday, June 29th, 2003
Subject: apparently, i am a geek.
Time: 3:16 pm.
1984, George Orwell
The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
Animal Farm, George Orwell
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
The BFG, Roald Dahl
Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
Bleak House, Charles Dickens
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
Catch 22, Joseph Heller
The Catcher In The Rye, JD Salinger
Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
Dune, Frank Herbert
Emma, Jane Austen
Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
The Godfather, Mario Puzo
Gone With The Wind, Margaret Mitchell
Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire, JK Rowling
Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
His Dark Materials trilogy, Philip Pullman
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Douglas Adams
The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
Holes, Louis Sachar
I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
Katherine, Anya Seton
The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, CS Lewis
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
The Lord Of The Rings, JRR Tolkien
Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blighton
Magician, Raymond E Feist
The Magus, John Fowles
Matilda, Roald Dahl
Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
Middlemarch, George Eliot
Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
Mort, Terry Pratchett
Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
On The Road, Jack Kerouac
One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Perfume, Patrick Suskind
Persuasion, Jane Austen
The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
Pride And Prejudice, Jane Austen
The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
The Ragged Trousered Philantrhopists, Robert Tressell
Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier
The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Secret History, Donna Tartt
The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
The Stand, Stephen King
The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
Tess Of The D'urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee
A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
The Twits, Roald Dahl
Ulysses, James Joyce
Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
War And Peace, Leo Tolstoy
Watership Down, Richard Adams
The Wind In The Willows, Kenneth Grahame
Winnie-the-Pooh, AA Milne
The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
100 Movies. Bold the Ones That You’ve Seen
Godfather, The (1972)
Shawshank Redemption, The (1994)
Godfather: Part II, The (1974)
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The (2001)
Schindler's List (1993)
Citizen Kane (1941)
Casablanca (1942)
Seven Samurai (1954)
Star Wars (1977)
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Momento (2000)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
Rear Window (1954)
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The (2002)
Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Usual Suspects, The (1995)
Amelie (2001)
Pulp Fiction (1994)
North by Northwest (1959)
Psycho (1960)
Silence of the Lambs, The (1991)
Angry Men (1957)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
Goodfellas (1990)
American Beauty (1999)
Vertigo (1958)
Pianist, The (2002)
Sunset Blvd. (1950)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
Some Like It Hot (1959)
Matrix, The (1999)
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Taxi Driver (1976)
Third Man, The (1949)
Paths of Glory (1957)
Fight Club (1999)
Boot, Das (1981)
L.A. Confidential (1997)
Double Indemnity (1944)
Chinatown (1974)
Requiem for a Dream (2000)
Maltese Falcon, The (1941)
Singin' in the Rain (1952)
Bridge on the River Kwai, The (1957)
Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi (2001)
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
All About Eve (1950)
M (1931)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
Raging Bull (1980)
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
Se7en (1995)
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (2000)
Wizard of Oz, The (1939)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Vita e bella, La (1997)
American History X (1998)
Sting, The (1973)
Touch of Evil (1958)
Manchurian Candidate, The (1962)
Alien (1979)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
Rashemon (1950)
Leon (1994)
Annie Hall (1977)
Great Escape, The (1963)
Clockwork Orange, A (1971)
Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The (1948)
Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Sixth Sense, The (1999)
Jaws (1975)
Amadeus (1984)
On the Waterfront (1954)
Ran (1985)
Braveheart (1995)
High Noon (1952)
Fargo (1996)
Blade Runner (1982)
Apartment, The (1960)
Aliens (1986)
Toy Story 2 (1999)
Strangers on a Train (1951)
Modern Times (1936)
Shining, The (1980)
Donnie Darko (2001)
Duck Soup (1933)
Princess Bride, The (1987)
Run Lola Run (1998)
City Lights (1931)
General, The (1927)
Metropolis (1927)
Searchers, The (1956)
Full Metal Jacket
Notorious (1946)
Manhattan (1979)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
The Graduate (1967)
Subject: hey now.
Time: 6:21 am.
it's early. i just got home. maybe then, it's late?
this was my last day of work for awhile. it ended on a good note despite the fact that i've been over-tired and slightly cranky the last two days. they understand. i worked sixty plus hours this week. i should be tired. and cranky.
danny from sliver gave me a ride home. nice guy.
paul from the store down the street wants to take me to the lucinda williams and neil young show today. he's good friends with lu and pettibum so he's got the ins for the show. i don't know paul that well, and maybe i should since he has been stopping into my work six times a day for the last week and a half. the show would be rad to go to, but i don't want to give him the wrong idea. dig?
i like my roommate a lot. he's become a good friend. i got a postcard from him in the mail today. what a bird. he sent it just so i could get some mail.
i'm typing simples sentences. because i am tired. dick and jane. dick and jane. dick and jane.
my mum is visiting for the fourth.
Thursday, June 26th, 2003
Subject: i like when it's this hot. but i still have flannel sheets on my bed.
Time: 2:00 pm.
Mood: hot.
Music: lucinda williams.
so saturday is my last day and then i go on "vacation." i'm stoked. sort of. lately work hasn't been that bad. the money has been more than decent and i've met some really nice folks, sans the the old dude that comes in six times a day who wants to take me to neil young. he's harmless. but believe me, he's old enough to be my father.
the whole point of quitting is to start anew.
i'm a little scared, i must admit. this working odd long hours has kept me from feeling less lonely. i'm a little nervous to be thrust into a non-working life. i will need to keep my self busy by looking for new work and taking advantage of new york and this weather too.
inside my head. a broken record. thinking about the same things over and over and over.
Monday, June 23rd, 2003
Subject: why.
Time: 11:02 am.
neo hippies. old men. and co-workers. why.
and on another note, despite the fact that i do not have a lot of friends in new york city, i still have one very good one in boston. and even when we don't speak for months at a time, i know when i have a problem i can call him.
Friday, June 20th, 2003
Subject: two days off in a row.
Time: 5:01 pm.
Mood: tired.
Music: wilco.
holy hot shit. i like this day off business.
things on the shelf:
my sister is having a baby in august.
my mum might visit me for the fourth.
i don't like drinking anymore.
i need to use drills on a daily basis.
Tuesday, June 17th, 2003
Subject: day off.
Time: 10:56 am.
i was awake only for five hours. so i bought the new radiohead and some sugar free candy.
Monday, June 16th, 2003
Subject: okay.
Time: 3:17 pm.
in two weeks i will regain what people refer to as a life.
this morning i got home at eight in the morning. miguel and i sat on broadway and houston on a defunct fruit stand. inebriated he talked about his fear regarding his mother and cancer, his disintegrating relationship with his long-time girlfriend, social issues of peru and his famous father. he drank budweiser in a twenty four ounce can. i drank diet doctor pepper. i didn't really talk much. i just listened. we got food and sat in tompkins square park. across from the dog run. watched kids walking to school. people walking to work. early morning joggers.
it's all so appealing. this waking life.
i want to learn how to cook. to come home at five. to make dinner. watch the news. read the paper. call friends. hang out. be in bed by ten.
your monotony is what i long for.
sometimes i think too hard about being alone for the rest of my life.
Friday, June 13th, 2003
Subject: for stephen dobyns.
Time: 11:56 am.
heart wants
[these] fissures
[not] to be
saccharine saturated
with
metamorphosing ideologies.
Wednesday, June 11th, 2003
Subject: amazing.
Time: 1:13 pm.
Mood: sleepy.
walking next to the east river at six in the morning.
Tuesday, June 10th, 2003
Subject: hi.
Time: 12:39 pm.
Mood: rejuvenated.
Music: roots. the next movement.
i am weather obsessed. it's going to rain wednesday, thursday, friday, saturday and sunday. and how does this make me feel, right now, at this exact moment? completely joyous because i can put off doing laundry. the twenty pounds of dirty clothes can wait another couple of days for the wash rinse dry lovin' it deserves, and i can relax, run, run errands, err in using this beautiful sunny day by hanging out inside, writing and reading.
i went to queens yesterday. i found my beloved target. (theo, a mart, sans the k, in new york? holy hot snakes). i meandered around outer queens and thoroughly enjoyed myself, hitting up small kitschy stores buying odds and ends for the apartment: wooden place mats, oven mits.
i tried on bathing suits. that is another story all together. all i know is that i'd like to visit some beaches this summer.
also. i've been entertaining the idea of attending the atlantic this fall, part time, but the problem lies within the fact that they are not a "real" instituion in regards to accreditation. which means that i'd be spending my own money, with no relief of loan payments. i'd be better off at an accredited school, working towards an mfa.
right? right. i know.
target:
polka dot pajama bottoms
leave-in conditioner
i started reading this old oates book i found at a thrift store. and zizek's welcome to the desert of the real.
sorry for the typos.
Subject: i know that you lurk around once and a bit...
Time: 11:01 pm.
and i want to say thank you for being my friend. and after reading this you will sing the golden girl's theme song for the rest of the day.
Thursday, July 24th, 2003
Time: 11:06 am.
i have been going on dates.
Friday, July 11th, 2003
Subject: EVEN ON THE PHONE MY MUM...
Time: 4:02 pm.
CAN ALWAYS TELL WHEN I'M DUE FOR MY PERIOD BY THE TONE IN MY VOICE.
Wednesday, July 9th, 2003
Subject: greetings.
Time: 11:51 am.
i feel settled.
i'm job hunting, so there is this gaping hole in my work life but everything else is pretty much alright. though this settling feeling is fulfilling, i still have these romanticized yearnings to flee to the middle of nowhere. i could bartend and write. plant tomatoes and cut myself off from the rest of this busy world. but i have plenty of time to fulfill that dream. am i really sixty-four?
are you where you want to be in life? if not, i suggest you change it.
Monday, July 7th, 2003
Subject: http://pisces.bubble.com/webstars/friend/friendForm.cfm
Time: 5:09 pm.
erica dow is mysterious and enigmatic; deep, perceptive, powerful, passionate and terribly, terribly sexy! The sentence above must be true because erica is a Scorpio and Scorpios as we all know are infamous for their interest in... well now, here's a funny thing. Despite what they say, Scorpios are not actually quite as wild and wicked as they are painted. erica has, it must be said, a very hypnotic appeal but what's truly mesmerising about erica is not her pout but her perspicacity. erica has an uncanny, almost spooky to see right through you. She can make you feel naked and exposed just by casting one meaningful glance in your direction. What she is looking at though, when she peers below the surface, is not your underwear but your underlying intention! "Where are you coming from? What are you up to? Can you be trusted? Are you going to tell the truth?" These are the questions that erica subconsciously fires out as soon as she sees you. Her inner radar never fails to provide her with the right answer. She is sensitive beyond measure, and it is partly to protect her own sensitivity that she scrutinises people so thoroughly.
There is another reason why erica dow is so keen to see into your soul: she needs to know how sensitive you are. She knows from long, bitter experience that not many people can take the kind of candour that she cannot help but dispense. erica is not a person to mince her words, hold back her opinions or shy away from taboo topics. She doesn't want to cause offence, nor does she want to waste her time, so she picks her confidantes carefully. All of which brings us back to where we began. If you are sensitive enough to appreciate erica's special qualities you will consider that there is something exceptionally sexy about her and she will feel the same way about you. So perhaps erica dow is living proof that it is true what they say about Scorpios after all.
Subject: sweaty.
Time: 5:06 pm.
and feeling less than pretty. and as i walked to kinko's, hairy ratty and no make-up, someone told me i was beautiful.
Saturday, July 5th, 2003
Time: 8:17 pm.
Mood: mellow.
Music: hot ninety-seven.
writing a letter i'll never send to you.
Friday, July 4th, 2003
Subject: tired.
Time: 10:21 pm.
today i stopped breathing on the r train.
three young ladies helped me out in my state of panic.
Wednesday, July 2nd, 2003
Subject: paint fumes.
Time: 11:54 pm.
a-rocka came over and helped me paint. one more day and i'm done. holla.
Tuesday, July 1st, 2003
Subject: july.
Time: 10:42 am.
holy smokes.
i'm working on my day schedule. i went to bed and nine thirty last night, after i went to the grocery. today i got up at seven-thirty. ran two miles. harassed my health insurance company, called my mother and made breakfast.
in the next few hours i will by paint supplies for my room.
on another note. i met this kid dan on friendster. turns out his mum was my sixth grade teacher.
Sunday, June 29th, 2003
Subject: apparently, i am a geek.
Time: 3:16 pm.
1984, George Orwell
The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
Animal Farm, George Orwell
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
The BFG, Roald Dahl
Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
Bleak House, Charles Dickens
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
Catch 22, Joseph Heller
The Catcher In The Rye, JD Salinger
Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
Dune, Frank Herbert
Emma, Jane Austen
Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
The Godfather, Mario Puzo
Gone With The Wind, Margaret Mitchell
Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire, JK Rowling
Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
His Dark Materials trilogy, Philip Pullman
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Douglas Adams
The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
Holes, Louis Sachar
I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
Katherine, Anya Seton
The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, CS Lewis
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
The Lord Of The Rings, JRR Tolkien
Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blighton
Magician, Raymond E Feist
The Magus, John Fowles
Matilda, Roald Dahl
Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
Middlemarch, George Eliot
Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
Mort, Terry Pratchett
Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
On The Road, Jack Kerouac
One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Perfume, Patrick Suskind
Persuasion, Jane Austen
The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
Pride And Prejudice, Jane Austen
The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
The Ragged Trousered Philantrhopists, Robert Tressell
Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier
The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Secret History, Donna Tartt
The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
The Stand, Stephen King
The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
Tess Of The D'urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee
A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
The Twits, Roald Dahl
Ulysses, James Joyce
Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
War And Peace, Leo Tolstoy
Watership Down, Richard Adams
The Wind In The Willows, Kenneth Grahame
Winnie-the-Pooh, AA Milne
The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
100 Movies. Bold the Ones That You’ve Seen
Godfather, The (1972)
Shawshank Redemption, The (1994)
Godfather: Part II, The (1974)
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The (2001)
Schindler's List (1993)
Citizen Kane (1941)
Casablanca (1942)
Seven Samurai (1954)
Star Wars (1977)
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Momento (2000)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
Rear Window (1954)
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The (2002)
Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Usual Suspects, The (1995)
Amelie (2001)
Pulp Fiction (1994)
North by Northwest (1959)
Psycho (1960)
Silence of the Lambs, The (1991)
Angry Men (1957)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
Goodfellas (1990)
American Beauty (1999)
Vertigo (1958)
Pianist, The (2002)
Sunset Blvd. (1950)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
Some Like It Hot (1959)
Matrix, The (1999)
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Taxi Driver (1976)
Third Man, The (1949)
Paths of Glory (1957)
Fight Club (1999)
Boot, Das (1981)
L.A. Confidential (1997)
Double Indemnity (1944)
Chinatown (1974)
Requiem for a Dream (2000)
Maltese Falcon, The (1941)
Singin' in the Rain (1952)
Bridge on the River Kwai, The (1957)
Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi (2001)
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
All About Eve (1950)
M (1931)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
Raging Bull (1980)
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
Se7en (1995)
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (2000)
Wizard of Oz, The (1939)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Vita e bella, La (1997)
American History X (1998)
Sting, The (1973)
Touch of Evil (1958)
Manchurian Candidate, The (1962)
Alien (1979)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
Rashemon (1950)
Leon (1994)
Annie Hall (1977)
Great Escape, The (1963)
Clockwork Orange, A (1971)
Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The (1948)
Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Sixth Sense, The (1999)
Jaws (1975)
Amadeus (1984)
On the Waterfront (1954)
Ran (1985)
Braveheart (1995)
High Noon (1952)
Fargo (1996)
Blade Runner (1982)
Apartment, The (1960)
Aliens (1986)
Toy Story 2 (1999)
Strangers on a Train (1951)
Modern Times (1936)
Shining, The (1980)
Donnie Darko (2001)
Duck Soup (1933)
Princess Bride, The (1987)
Run Lola Run (1998)
City Lights (1931)
General, The (1927)
Metropolis (1927)
Searchers, The (1956)
Full Metal Jacket
Notorious (1946)
Manhattan (1979)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
The Graduate (1967)
Subject: hey now.
Time: 6:21 am.
it's early. i just got home. maybe then, it's late?
this was my last day of work for awhile. it ended on a good note despite the fact that i've been over-tired and slightly cranky the last two days. they understand. i worked sixty plus hours this week. i should be tired. and cranky.
danny from sliver gave me a ride home. nice guy.
paul from the store down the street wants to take me to the lucinda williams and neil young show today. he's good friends with lu and pettibum so he's got the ins for the show. i don't know paul that well, and maybe i should since he has been stopping into my work six times a day for the last week and a half. the show would be rad to go to, but i don't want to give him the wrong idea. dig?
i like my roommate a lot. he's become a good friend. i got a postcard from him in the mail today. what a bird. he sent it just so i could get some mail.
i'm typing simples sentences. because i am tired. dick and jane. dick and jane. dick and jane.
my mum is visiting for the fourth.
Thursday, June 26th, 2003
Subject: i like when it's this hot. but i still have flannel sheets on my bed.
Time: 2:00 pm.
Mood: hot.
Music: lucinda williams.
so saturday is my last day and then i go on "vacation." i'm stoked. sort of. lately work hasn't been that bad. the money has been more than decent and i've met some really nice folks, sans the the old dude that comes in six times a day who wants to take me to neil young. he's harmless. but believe me, he's old enough to be my father.
the whole point of quitting is to start anew.
i'm a little scared, i must admit. this working odd long hours has kept me from feeling less lonely. i'm a little nervous to be thrust into a non-working life. i will need to keep my self busy by looking for new work and taking advantage of new york and this weather too.
inside my head. a broken record. thinking about the same things over and over and over.
Monday, June 23rd, 2003
Subject: why.
Time: 11:02 am.
neo hippies. old men. and co-workers. why.
and on another note, despite the fact that i do not have a lot of friends in new york city, i still have one very good one in boston. and even when we don't speak for months at a time, i know when i have a problem i can call him.
Friday, June 20th, 2003
Subject: two days off in a row.
Time: 5:01 pm.
Mood: tired.
Music: wilco.
holy hot shit. i like this day off business.
things on the shelf:
my sister is having a baby in august.
my mum might visit me for the fourth.
i don't like drinking anymore.
i need to use drills on a daily basis.
Tuesday, June 17th, 2003
Subject: day off.
Time: 10:56 am.
i was awake only for five hours. so i bought the new radiohead and some sugar free candy.
Monday, June 16th, 2003
Subject: okay.
Time: 3:17 pm.
in two weeks i will regain what people refer to as a life.
this morning i got home at eight in the morning. miguel and i sat on broadway and houston on a defunct fruit stand. inebriated he talked about his fear regarding his mother and cancer, his disintegrating relationship with his long-time girlfriend, social issues of peru and his famous father. he drank budweiser in a twenty four ounce can. i drank diet doctor pepper. i didn't really talk much. i just listened. we got food and sat in tompkins square park. across from the dog run. watched kids walking to school. people walking to work. early morning joggers.
it's all so appealing. this waking life.
i want to learn how to cook. to come home at five. to make dinner. watch the news. read the paper. call friends. hang out. be in bed by ten.
your monotony is what i long for.
sometimes i think too hard about being alone for the rest of my life.
Friday, June 13th, 2003
Subject: for stephen dobyns.
Time: 11:56 am.
heart wants
[these] fissures
[not] to be
saccharine saturated
with
metamorphosing ideologies.
Wednesday, June 11th, 2003
Subject: amazing.
Time: 1:13 pm.
Mood: sleepy.
walking next to the east river at six in the morning.
Tuesday, June 10th, 2003
Subject: hi.
Time: 12:39 pm.
Mood: rejuvenated.
Music: roots. the next movement.
i am weather obsessed. it's going to rain wednesday, thursday, friday, saturday and sunday. and how does this make me feel, right now, at this exact moment? completely joyous because i can put off doing laundry. the twenty pounds of dirty clothes can wait another couple of days for the wash rinse dry lovin' it deserves, and i can relax, run, run errands, err in using this beautiful sunny day by hanging out inside, writing and reading.
i went to queens yesterday. i found my beloved target. (theo, a mart, sans the k, in new york? holy hot snakes). i meandered around outer queens and thoroughly enjoyed myself, hitting up small kitschy stores buying odds and ends for the apartment: wooden place mats, oven mits.
i tried on bathing suits. that is another story all together. all i know is that i'd like to visit some beaches this summer.
also. i've been entertaining the idea of attending the atlantic this fall, part time, but the problem lies within the fact that they are not a "real" instituion in regards to accreditation. which means that i'd be spending my own money, with no relief of loan payments. i'd be better off at an accredited school, working towards an mfa.
right? right. i know.
target:
polka dot pajama bottoms
leave-in conditioner
i started reading this old oates book i found at a thrift store. and zizek's welcome to the desert of the real.
sorry for the typos.
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